Blog = Diary?

There is a wave of discontent amongst the HK Bloggers when a programme by Cable TV on "Blogs in Hong Kong" equates "blogs" with "personal diaries". Needless to say, such interpretation is seen as "too naive".

There are a lot of discussions at various blogs on this issue (see Sidekick for example) and I don't think I can add anything more to the debate. As I understand, some HK bloggers are planning to lodge formal protests to Cable TC as well. I have not watched the programme so I am not in the best position to comment on the issue. But in my mind, there is no doubt that Blog is not equivalent to personal diaries, it is a LOT more than that.

Dressed to Kill

It always feels special when you saw someone you know on TV or newspaper.

This afternoon I visited Give me Spirit Fingers Dammit to check out the latest round of fashion victims. Tadaaaa! Guess what I have found! A picture of my ex-colleague (Note: ex-colleague, not friends or anything) in that blog and to quote Spirit Fingers

"Women persist in showing as much white leg as possible"

Read the post and see the photo here. I nearly fell off my chair laughing and when I found my composure again, I immediately sent the link to my friends (Note: friends, also ex-colleagues).

Spirit Fingers, thank you very much! You made our day!

A Bit of Everything

Work is pretty busy - need to come in on Sat afternoon for a meeting and not having too much time updating this blog or reading other blogs.

Went to a housewarming party after meeting and ate a lot of salted chicken wings and chicken livers. They were great.

Went to church (yes) on Sunday morning then rushed back to meet relatives for lunch at Times Square. Then rushed to Diamond Hill to visit Children's home and drove to Tai Po for an educational outing. (YES!) Boating and baking were the orders of the outing, followed by a dinner there. Rushed back home to catch the 2nd half of Spurs v Villa at night.

Yesterday, went to the Peak for an hour walk but my thigh became sore after 30 minutes. Bumped into Gordan and Thomas (with their gfs). Ate a lot - Ox Tongue Fried Rice with Black Bean Sauce, Siu Mai and Curry fishballs as lunch, an Ice Cream sundae at McDonalds as tea and a heavy dinner at a Chinese restaurant in Wanchai with some other relatives of mine. Still felt hungry after I got home!

Spurs 5 Villa 1

I only returned home when the game was 35 minutes old, and Spurs were 3-0 up by then! I couldn't believe my eyes for a second. We conceded a penalty at the end of first half, making me wonder whether there would be a repeat of Spurs 3 City 4 game last season. It wasn't to be and we went on to finish the job impressively. Stephen Kelly was my MoM choice, but Simon Davies ran him close.

It is nice that Spurs are now sitting in the 7th place and the crunch game this weekend against Boro will decide who are going to Europe next season.

Come on you Spurs!

World's 50 Best Restaurants

The World's 50 Best Restaurants poll compiled by the Restaurant Magazine is out.

The annual list is based on the magazine's canvasing of more than 600 influential restaurateurs, critics, chefs, and industry experts. This year's consensus will have foodies everywhere heading to London, where over a quarter of the winners are located.

Further down the list you will find the sole representative from Hong Kong - Felix. Is it really that good?

See the poll results here.

Teen freed from rubbish bin

AN 18-year-old who got himself trapped head first in a rubbish bin in front of late night revellers in Melbourne has earned himself a new nickname - Oscar
the grouch.The hapless teen went rummaging in the bin early this morning when
one of his friends threw his mobile phone into it, then couldn't get out.

"He was trapped in the bin with his arm and head through the stainless steel
top of the bin, a bit like a lobster trap," said Peter Yeoman of the fire brigade's rescue squad, which was called to St Kilda to free the young man.

Police, an ambulance crew and local firefighters all added to the 3.40am
(AEST) spectacle for a large crowd, which soon built up on the busy bar strip of
Fitzroy Street.

Firefighters unscrewed the stainless steel lid from the body of the bin and then tried unsuccessfully to free the man by lubricating his head to slide him out.

"He was just wearing it like a big Elizabethan collar - like a dog would have when it got its stitches out," Mr Yeoman said. The jaws of life would not cut through the marine grade stainless steel, so firefighters had to use an air powered hacksaw to cut him free.

Mr Yeoman said the young man kept his sense of humour throughout his 45 minute ordeal, even as the crowd of onlookers grew. "He was in good spirits and he took it really well," he said. "But there were so many people around, all having a go at him of course, calling him 'Oscar the grouch'."

Mr Yeoman said it was a first for him. He had never rescued anyone from a bin before.

The young man, who comes from Drouin, was not seriously injured and walked away with a few bruises, scratches and, of course, dented pride.

I have watched video clippings of this news on Cable News. Hilarious stuff!

What's my Japanese name?

A silly test from Blogthings. Type in your English name and it will generate a Japanese name for you. This is mine:

Your Japanese Name Is...

Jiro Masachika

What's your Japanese Name?

Narrow defeat

0-1 to the Arse. Not a bad performance, but a lack of real quality. Carrick, Davis, Reid and Davies are not a marked improvement to Poyet, Sherwood, Leonhardsen and Korsten. At least the latter 4 can score goals.

It has been said but it is important that we should buy quality and not prospect to take the club forward. Atouba, Ziegler, Defendi, Reid, Dawsen, Huddlestone...etc may all well develop into useful squad members, but I can't see any of them progressing into a world beater. Please sign some big established names in the summer, or else we will find ourselves in similar position same time next season.

Arse v Spurs

Another derby at the closing stage of the season. Last season the Arsescum won the title at our place, and this time we are looking to end their title hunt at their place.


We have not lost to any top teams (Chelsea, Man U, Everton, Liverpool, Newcastle) away this season and if this trend continues tonight, the title will be Chelsea's. The best formation is Robinson, Kelly, King, Dawson, Edman, Reid, Davies, Davis, Brown, Defoe, Kanoute. I rate Brown over Carrick this season. Defoe scored a cracker against Arse at home and hopefully he will do so again tonite.

Talking about Carrick, he has the ability and physique to match Gerrard. But he lacks all the determination and drive to progress further. Of course he is still young and still not yet the finished article, but he must find another gear in the summer or else he will no more than a squad player rather than a midfield dynamo for us. Please try to score a goal too...

I will have Spurs (+1 handicap) and I am also tempted to put some $ on 1-1 or 2-2 draw.

COME ON YOU SPURS!

The Case

Quite pissed off this afternoon. The judgment of the Lands Tribunal case which I conducted a while ago has been handed down. We were only half successful - won part of our claim and lost the rest. Costs were awarded to our side.

Although costs go to the winning party, I still consider it a defeat. And I think the Member has erred (badly) in both his findings of fact and question of law. I am quite confident that an appeal will see us through, but client is not prepared to spend another several thousand dollars to pursue an appeal which will probably worth nothing at the end given the trivial amount she is claiming. What can I do when I cannot appeal against the decision when it is quite clearly wrong?

It is even worse that the client turned on me after hearing the judgment. Blaming me for the wrong findings by the "Member" when she gave vastly different stories to the tribunal (without my representation at the 1st hearing and with my representation at the adjourned hearing?). It was not long ago when she was so grateful to me for charging her a (very) nominal fee to handle the case which she has started poorly. Perhaps I shouldn't have tried so hard. Damn it. Back visualising your images poor soul!

A Prison Diary II by Jeffrey Archer

Just started reading a book by Jeffrey Archer recording his time in prison. I bought this book in Shanghai and without reading any reviews or knowing the author before buying this book, the RMB76 I spent on the book seems a well spent investment for me so far.

Did some research on Jeffrey Archer just now and he is definitely living a rollercoaster life. See his profile here.

With my past few years dedicated to football magazines, I am aiming to read more books in the future. Any recommendation for good books?

The Pope

So I was talking to Ellen on phone last night and she asked me who was elected the new Pope. I told her no one had been elected yet, and I was wrong. It turned out that the white smoke has billowed from the Sistine Chapel....but was it black smoke instead?

Then after 5 minutes, there was that guy coming out the balcony and delivered a speech in Latin (or Italian?) and I told Ellen that was the new Pope.

Wait a minute, no it wasn't. He was just announcing the New Pope has been elected who turned out to be Benedict XVI. The odds at Betfair just before the announcement for him was 1:4 (40 dollars profit for 10 dollars bet).

周杰倫‧七里香??? III

The lyrics of 七里香 unveilled! A must must watch!!! Click here or here to watch it. Remember to turn on your speaker volume!!!! (Click reload it you don't see a pop up media player)

Blogs or Ads?

Thanks to Just a Sidekick, these 3 "blogs" (or "Ads") may be of interests to you.

香港立法會議員單仲楷的Blog
謝連忠律師的一個香港律師的意見和偏見
Margaret Ng's blog (under construction)

Spurs - Edman's goal against Liverpool

Have anyone not seen it? Watch it here!

Probably the best Spurs goal I saw live. Yes, it was better than Gazza's freekick against Arse.

Sticker Map

An very interesting idea by Littleoslo putting together the stickers of HK and Taiwan.

希望透過地圖的形式將Blog的連結作一個視像化的分類。通過地圖的更新和擴展，成為一個有趣的活動。

I am honoured to be included in the sticker map and you can find my Glory Glory sticker on the map!

See the sticker map here!

Season Review - Winning Eleven

We had a good start to the season - sitting on top of the league after 3 games and were looking invincible. Then a slip in the mid-season pushed us down the table but we managed a draw against Euphoria in the last game to secure a much respectable place - 5th out of 12.

If we look at the league table, the problem with Winning Eleven was the inability to pick up any points against all the teams placed above us, despite playing well and leading against Freshers. Of course the other side of the coin saw us beat all the teams placed below us apart from Wu Dang and Euphoria.

The fitness of the team as a whole has not been good and we generally slowed down in the 2nd half and that was when we conceded probably 80% of the goals. It was particularly difficult if you have to chase a game when you concede an early goal. Only in the game against Fortune had seen us win a game after going a goal down.

One of the biggest improvements is the organisation of the team. From organising (thanks to Kenward and Raymond for sending the evites) and gathering (meeting 15 minutes before kickoff) to positioning (everyone knows their positions and adapts to the role) and playing (having some sort of tactics - the kickoff routine, the long throw in etc), the team has been playing much better than last season.

It would be a hard battle to keep up the standard next season and the imminent departure of our goalie means a capable replacement needs to be found.

On a personal front, I am finding it increasingly difficult to find the extra yard of pace. If you lose pace, it is very difficult to get away from the defenders. It looks like that I have to play like Teddy Sheringham (the extra yards are in his head). But I am happy with my goal return this season - 10 goals in 11 games. I am 1 goal short of winning the Golden Boot Award for the 2nd season running, but I know I should have walked away with it but for the eventual winner scoring 5 goals in a game where the opponent played with 8 men only. There is always next season...

I am pleased with the varieties of my goals - 2 freekicks, 1 acrobatic volley, 3 headers (!), 2 penalties and 3 other which I have forgotten how I scored. That acrobatic volley (half overhead kick) must rank as one of best goals I have ever scored! :-)

See the League Table here
See the Winning Eleven results here
See my goal history here

As usual, you are welcome to leave your comments here.

Some overdue updates

I have been extremely hard working (in working) and extremely lazy (in writing this blog) for the past 2 weeks, and here are some quick overdue updates from me:

Work

As I said, I have been getting increasingly busier over the past month and today was particularly hectic for me. There was an unless order at 4pm today and we managed to get the doc filed by 3:58pm! If our court clerk get stuck in a lift or traffic jam, then that would be it!

Court

I conducted my 2nd trial at Lands Tribunal last Thursday. It was another good experience for me as I have always liked being an advocate. Cross examining witnesses is the fun part - provided it all goes according to your plan. The judge was the same one I faced 1 year ago who ruled in favour of me, and for sure he is not an intimidating figure. He was forever looking like he was in a rush and one of his habits is quoting irrelevant examples. This time, his best lines were - "You know, I don't know the whole truth. I can't know the whole truth, can I? But it is like that in civil cases....balance of probabilities...you know....55 to 45...or 48 to 52 ....or 47 to 53.....you know..."

I am confident that the case will rule in our favour, stay tuned for the outcome.

Client

Speaking of my client in the above case, she is an old woman and suffered mental illness some years ago. I had a concern as to whether she has the capacity to enter into any contract with us but that is irrelevant now. She told me some weird stories when I met her, like how she over-practised a religion such that she had ascended to another dimension, how she used to hear noises and see images of another dimension...etc. She seems very normal and rational to me now. I hope her well.

A Landmark Diver

Check this hilarious video clip from Fumier

There is something about Erection

I attended a conference with 5 middle aged men yesterday. Guess what the meeting was about - click "Comments" at the bottom of this post to see the answer. Here are some verbatim quotes of the meeting:

"I am not worried about cross examination. I know about erection everything
I need to know. I have been in erection for the past 20 years."

"Having erected for so long, I will never change my views. No one
can."

"Even if [someone] has perfect dimension, it still needs perfect
erection."

"The Erector should drive the sequence. He should tell the Fabricator what he
wants."

An Interesting Supreme Court Case in US

Got this from Boing Boing, a Supreme Court decision that technology companies shouldn't have to imagine all the infringing ways that their customers might use their products and design to prevent them -- otherwise the iPod, Outlook and the Xerox machine would all be illegal.

Read the judgment here.

Messed up...

Came across this "interesting" piece of news on http://expatatlarge.com/pm/weblog.php and Japundit:

A chinese man, jailed and badly beaten during and after an investigation
into his wife's murder, has been freed after she turned up alive and with
another husband, revealing a brutal arbitrariness to China's legal
system.

She Xianglin's wife, Zhang Zaiyu, disappeared after a domestic dispute in 1994 and when a woman's body was found in a local reservoir, Mr She was detained on suspicion of killing his wife, the China Daily said.

The body was so decomposed it could not be identified, but a local court
found Mr She, a former part-time police officer from central Hubei province,
guilty of murder and sentenced him to death.

A provincial court later commuted the sentence to 15 years in prison. Mr She,
39, was coerced into confessing to her murder and beaten badly in prison, the
newspaper said.

International human rights groups say police torture is widespread in China
and that suspects are held for long periods without trial. But it is rare for a
victim, or the domestic media, to go public about police brutality.

Mr She told the Beijing News that when he was first apprehended, police took him to a remote house and interrogated him for 11 days. He was given just two bowls of
rice a day, nearly no water, prevented from sleeping and threatened with
death.

Reuters

Football Pundits

The most annoying thing when watching football programmes on Cable TV is that you have to endure the endless bullshit of the so-called TV pundits and football experts. Apart from a very few, the rest talks utter bullshit every match.

That's why I have chosen to turn to Channel 64 (the HKJC football betting channel) for some laughs during the match instead. But still stupid commentaries ring loud and clear from time to time. Like tonite, there are some English Championship matches on. Those pundits said (repeatedly) that there were doubts as to whether some teams, like Ipswich, wanted to get promotion. They reasoned that they would lose every game in the Premiership and would be better off staying in Nationwide Championship.

This is utter bullshit of the highest order! It is a well known fact that the gulf between Premiership sides and Nationwide sides lies in money. Teams earn several millions more TV rights, sponsorship etc in the Premiership than they could in the Nationwide. So why should a team prefer to stay in Nationwide by earning a tiny portion of the income they could have received in the Premiership??

I hope ESPN get their broadcasting right of English soccer back.

哈爾移動城堡 Howl's Moving Castle

Probably one of the worst cartoon / animation movie I have ever watched. Bad storyline, less-than-impressive graphics and apart from the first 10 minutes, the whole movie is a sleeping pill.

Construction Worker

Construction Worker
Originally uploaded by 4016697.

Taken at Lok Ma Chau Cross Border Rail Station.

Some reckons I look better in this outfit than in my usual business suits.

I dreamt of...

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson yesterday.

We were in a ferry and Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson were seated at the back. Sherlock Holmes in his usual outfits - cap, pipe etc. - looked old. I was there after returning from a mystery where someone was killed and police were beginning investigation....etc.

Then it goes...

Me: "Mr. Holmes, I am James"
SH: "I have known you for the past 2 years"
Me: "I must have bothered you a lot, sorry. But Mr. Holmes, there is something I must talk to you"

Then Holmes stood up and went to the front of the ferry and I followed him. The dream ended by Holmes ordering a sausage + egg instant noodles!

Shanghai Delight

4 days after returning from Brisbane, I boarded the plane again. This time the destination is Shanghai.

The (extremely) early flight at 8:20am means that I had to arrive at the airport as early as 6:20am. I woke up at 5:20 to make sure I wouldn't miss the first Airport Express departing from the Hong Kong station. Met Ellen at the airport and she was 20 minutes late. She was apparently still in her dreamland when she suggested to meet for breakfast without even checking us in! After my usual routine of having the breakfast at Café de Coral at the airport and visiting WH Smith, we boarded the plane with the *Final Call* sign flashing. So no duty free shopping this time.

The Hotel - JC Mandarin

Made a fool out of myself when I asked the cab driver to take us to "Gaan Chuang Wen Hua" (錦滄文華) Hotel. The driver clearly didn't understand me. It was then debated between us (Me and Ellen, not the driver) as to whether "錦 " should be pronounced as "Gaan" or "Jin". It turned out that I was wrong - it should pronounce as "Jin". Ellen got her revenge over me after her similar experience in Taiwan.

The hotel is situated at the central business district of Shanghai with Plaza 66 opposite to it. The Shanghai office of my firm (as well as several big names) are all packed in Plaza 66, a state of the art building which have a large shopping mall selling expensive stuff downstairs. McDonalds and Haagen Daaz are nearby.

The hotel room is neatly decorated with a king sized bed and the longest pillow I have ever laid my head on. Located on the 19th floor, it has a nice view from the room at night when the lights on the streets are on.

Eat Eat Eat

Without the desire to go sightseeing or visiting museums, 80% of our trip was planned around eating. There are so many good restaurants around but our capacity of our stomachs are limited, but we did try our best to put in as much food as our stomachs allowed. Adopting the economic theory I learnt from my F6 class, I only stopped eating until the marginal utility of my having another bite has dropped to zero.

Below are a list of restaurants we visited during our 4 days trip:

1. 港式茶餐廳
2. 永和大王
3. 金錨
4. 南翔饅頭店
5. 真鍋咖啡店
6. 新吉士
7. 永和大王
8. McDonalds
9. 黃浦會
10. [a coffee shop]
11. [日式燒烤]
12. 楊家廚房
13. 永和大王 (again!)
14. Hyatt Hotel Coffee Shop
15. 小金陵
    
16. Coffee Shop at Airport
    

You may note that "永和大王 " appeared several times on the list. That was by far my most favourite place to eat in Shanghai. I have experienced the best beef noodles in my life there - the soup was made of chillies and carrot, so it tastes spicy and sweet at the same time. Then the hot soya milk with the "油炸鬼" is the best food partnership. You can spend as little as RMB18 to enjoy the above combo.

"新吉士" and "楊家廚房" serve good Shanghainese dishes. According to a travel guidebook, the latter restaurant is a must-visit place for my favourite idol - Headmaster Tam. "黃浦會" is another nicely decorated restaurant at the "外灘" facing the Oriental Pearl Tower at Pudong.

The Charm

Shanghai is a beautiful city, especially when the lights are on at night. The yellowish lights on the European style buildings at the "外灘" must rank as one of the beautiful sights in China and the Oriental Pearl Tower and Jin Mao Building on the other side of the harbour added to the modern uniqueness of the city.

I was surprised by the number of skyscrapers in Shanghai. Although I am not an expert in building design (and never will be), I do find the numerous 60-storey upwards buildings scattered around the city have their own uniqueness. I think it is only a matter of time before it breaks into the top 5 most beautiful skylines in the world (which is now occupied by Hong Kong, New York, Seoul, Chicago and Singapore).


Shopping?

Despite my best efforts to get a pair of new sportshoes, I failed. The prices of Adidas, Nike etc are much more expensive in Shanghai than in Hong Kong. Apart from the costs of travelling and food is slightly cheaper than Hong Kong, the money you spend on other items (especially luxurious merchandise) is as much in Shanghai as you spend in Hong Kong. So neither place is a shopping paradise. Anymore.

It turned out that the only stuff I bought is a pack of "Duck Liver" for my secretary and a mini Er-hu "二胡" for my mother.

Lastly…

We are already planning which hotel we are going to stay in for our next visit. Grand Hyatt at the Jin Mao Building is a clear favourite here.

Funny Signs in China

The Retreat

I am back from the Retreat in Twin Waters Resort in Sunshine Coast, Brisbane. It is an eye-opener for me and for the 3 days there, I had to mingle with Aussies that I have never met before. My memory is getting poorer and poorer and it is no surprise that I kept forgetting the names of the people there - resulting in introducing myself to the same people again....and again!

It is nice to meet them though as all of them (partners or associates) have all been very friendly to me. Ego was non-existent at the camp.

Day 1

After an almost 9 hours flight to Brisbane, the HK team boarded a 7 seater for another 1 hour drive to the resort. It was good that I managed 4-5 hours sleep on the plane and I watched "Finding Neverland" for the rest of the 2 hours. After arriving at the resort, I had a quick shower before heading to have a quick bite. We then had our first activity - an discussion group on the topic "We can obtain the best knowhow by...". I feel it a bit surprised that everyone in the group was very serious about the session and there were a lot of constructive discussions and some heated arguments as well.

After the session I had a tennis game with Brian (an Aussie who lived in HK for the past 5 years and a nice guy) and although I was playing not as bad as I thought, I was soundly murdered by him. 1-6, 0-6. "Home Advantage" was my excuse of losing.

Then dinner at the Naked Italian followed by a games and quiz nights. I had absolutely no idea as to all the quizzes (I don't even understand some of the questions as those were tailor made for the Aussies).

Day 2

Day 2 began with the presentation of the discussion group we had on the 1st Day. Then there was the showcase presentation. It was basically a presentation by each office as to the people and the projects they were working on. We did a powerpoint presentation on the theme "Mission Impossible - Mission Hong Kong / Shanghai" with some very nice background music in the tune of Mission Impossible. The slides show our funny photos and some good one-liners. My line was "Laws were made to be broken". The Hong Kong showcase was well received which is great as there were a lot of efforts behind the whole thing.

Then it came the game "Survivor". I was surprised by the fitness of the Aussies - many female colleagues overrun me in the first game which involves a lot of running. Our team finished the competitions in the first place but was gunned down in the Tribal Council. One of the tasks in the Survivor game was to nominate something that "I have done something which no one here have ever done". It was interesting to note that the Sydney partner once drove train for a living, an associate once sang live on US TV at the Goldengate Bridge in San Francisco and another chap caught a crocodile while fishing...

The Talent Quest was the next activity on the night. We had some divided opinions as to whether we should perform our can-can showgirls dance. I was going for it and I have prepared to make a fool out of myself long beforehand. We had a voting 10 minutes before we were due to appear on stage - it was a "go" by a 5-2 majority. Our performance lasted for 30 seconds before it all went wrong. The stage was too small for us to perform our "moves". We were standing on the stage forgetting what moves were next before someone said "Let's move for the exit!" and we are done!

Day 3

After breakfast, we checked out and headed for the airport. Another 8.5 hours flight saw me watched "Sideways", "Closer" and the last half hour of "Murder by number". That concludes the Retreat.

Got it!

Got the visa 2 hours before the close of business. Phew!

Am I staying or am I going?

Everything are prepared. The dresses, the can-can moves, the luggages, even the wigs and eye-lashes.
Except one thing….my visit visa! I am still waiting for my visit visa 5 hours before the Australian Consulate is bound to close for business today.
So I might not be going afterall!

McMug

Cute little icon

Added this cute little icon to this blog. Feel free to use it for linking!

Survival Kit, Travelling, Football, Spurs...etc

It seems that I have not been updating this blog for quite a while, so I am putting together some random stuff here:-

- Many cool little games at Mousebreaker.com, which is really an essential survival kit for office workers. I can't live without it. Blast billiards and Striker of the Month are my 2 favourites. Anyone who can reach the 2nd save point of Blast Billiards please leave me a note how you do it!

- My travel schedule : 18-20 March on business retreat in Australia and 25-28 March on a leisure trip to Shanghai

- Rather unexpectedly, I have fallen into 2nd place in the Top Scorer Table for LSCOBA soccer league, with 9 goals in 9 games. The trophy was once in my pocket but then my rival scored 5 in one match to overtake me. I still have 2 matches to outscore him though.

- Speaking of football, I scored twice in a grassroot standard friendly match on Monday. This wasn't worth reporting, but then my first goal was scored from just outside my penalty area (a full 40 to 50 yards out at least).

- Last Monday, I went to the top floor of Princes Building to do some fitting measurement for the Talent Quest. And my ever-expanding waistline is now standing [proudly] at the staggering height of 33"!

- Watched one of the best football matches in recent years - Chelsea 4 Barcelona 2. Thrilling entertainment! Joe Cole arguably played the best match of his career so far.

- My beloved Spurs are doing not bad recently despite a slip-up against Southampton last weekend. Spurs will play away to Newcastle for a FA Cup semi-final spot. Newcastle is really banging on form but having already won 1-0 at St James Park earlier this season, I am confident that Spurs will at least earn a replay.

I am Sorry!

I am so wrong. I am really sorry. Words and tears can't describe how remorseful I am. It is my worst sin in my life, and I swear that I will never repeat the mistake for the rest of my life. I will be a good boy from today. Please forgive me!

Quality clip

Quality clip!

Weather

What's going on with the global weather? Snowing in Las Vegas, a 20
degree celcius difference in a day in Japan, not to mention the
Tsunami. To a lesser extent, Hong Kong is suffering from the coldest
and most humid March (ever)!

It seems that the cool wave shows no sign of leaving as it is
forecasted that the temparature on Saturday will again drop to 9
degrees. So I am having flu again which is like a monthly event for
me. Of course sitting frozen in a hot pot restaurant, worshipping
ancestors under heavy rain and playing football (and getting stuffed
2-6) aren't gonna help!

Spring Dinner

Spring dinner for my new firm took place this Wednesday which was also the 15th day of Chinese New Year. The theme of the dinner was "Colourful". Although I did my best to wear the sharpest jacket I can find in my closet, I was not good enough to receive a single vote for the Best Dresser Award....

Allegedly a True Story

You probably have seen it before, but I'd just put it here for your amusement.

A Charlotte, NC, lawyer purchased a box of very rare and expensive
cigars, then insured them against fire among other things. Within a month
having smoked his entire stockpile of these great cigars
and without yet having made even his first premium payment on the policy,
the lawyer filed claim against the insurance company. In his claim, the
lawyer stated the cigars were lost "in a series of small fires." The
insurance company refused to pay, citing the obvious reason: that the man
had consumed the cigars in the normal fashion. The lawyer sued and won!
In delivering the ruling the judge agreed with the insurance company that
the claim was frivolous. The Judge stated nevertheless,that the lawyer
held a policy from the company in which it had warranted
that the cigars were insurable and also guaranteed that it would
insure them against fire, without defining what is considered to be
unacceptable fire," and was obligated to pay the claim. Rather than
endure lengthy and costly appeal process, the insurance company accepted
the ruling and paid $15,000.00 to the lawyer for his loss of the rare
cigars lost in the "fires."

NOW FOR THE BEST PART...
After the lawyer cashed the check, the insurance company had him arrested
on 24 counts of ARSON!!!! With his own insurance claim and testimony from
the previous case being used against him. The lawyer was convicted of
intentionally burning his insured property and was sentenced to 24
months in jail and a $24,000.00 fine.

Can someone please buy me.....

an Air-Con? Mine is not working and is more like a heater.

Air-Con, Coke, Internet

Speaking of Air-Con, it must be one of the inventions of all time.
Certainly I cannot live without it especially in Hong Kong this hot
and humid place.

The other 2 things that I cannot live without are Coke and Internet. I
like drinking coke while the others like drinking beers or smoking
cigarettes - so I assume I am still the healthiest of the 3. I like
coke so much that I now have its necessary accessory - a mini-fridge
in my room now.

As for internet, I'd feel really strange if I do not have access to it
everyday. Blogging, keeping track of Spurs news, playing online games
and football betting - all part of my daily life - are all done on the
internet. So take away the internet, you take away half of my life.

The Aviator

I am not saying it is a bad movie. But I just don't know why the heck
is this movie so special for it to earn so much rave reviews and is
currently the hot favourite to land the Oscar Best Film Award.

I was stuck at the cinema for 3 hours waiting for its climax and
before knowing it, it ends. During the 3 hours, I didn't cry, laugh or
giggle at any part of the movie. If I was attached to a pulse machine,
the meter probably remained constant for the whole duration. If I have
to give one emotion / feeling that I have towards the movie, it
probably would be "Miserable".

Give me some milk, give me some milk, give me some milk....

The Judge

I came across this news from a website this afternoon....

Judge Allegedly Had Sex Device Under Robes

POSTED: 2:54 pm CST February 9, 2005
UPDATED: 3:09 pm CST February 9, 2005

OKLAHOMA CITY -- An Oklahoma judge faces indecent exposure charges for
allegedly masturbating in court.

Investigators in Oklahoma City charge that Judge Donald Thompson used
a device called a "penis pump" under his robe during trials.

Thompson denies the allegations. He says the pump was a gag gift from
a hunting buddy on his 50th birthday.

Thompson retired from the bench in August in the face of the
embarrassing allegations, but now prosecutors have decided to press
criminal charges.

Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson expects there will be a
string of appeals from defendants who were tried before Thompson,
including those who faced murder charges. Investigators said they've
recovered DNA samples from carpet, the judge's chair and his robes.

Grrr....

Random Mumblings

Today is my secretary's (K's) birthday. I have placed my present on her desk before she arrived at office. She was pleasantly surprised because she had not expected me to know her birthday (which I know from the telephone list which contains one b-day - without the year of birth of course) and had not expected to receive a present from me as she was only my secretary for merely 10 days or so. She said that I am "細心" in knowing her b-day and "有心意" in choosing the gift. These are of course nice words to hear, but what she didn't know was I had bought this present for my ex-secretary at my old firm before.....

Speaking of my new firm, I am really enjoying every minute of it (bar the 8:30am meeting every fortnight!). I think I have settled in quite well. Some Aussies even said that my English contains Australian accent! But yesterday, there was a Aussie newcomer who sits in my adjacent room. He entered into my room and asked me for a "case". Being confused, I thought he was asking what case I am working on and I mumbled something. 30 seconds later, he again asked me for a "case". I again asked "what case?". He said "the 'case' to the male toilet". Shit, he was asking me to lend him the "keys" all along!!! How embarassing!!!!

After 2 weeks observation, I can confirm my boss is an all round nice bloke. He is polite, humble, approachable and well, just very nice. He always apologises to me for having to make me stay at office till 6:45pm (!!!!!), always says my points are intelligent and good (it is encouraging even if fake) and always puts blame on himself for revising my draft letter or pleadings (which clearly isn't his faults!!!). Like today, he came in and told me that he would leave office early to attend a duty lawyer session. He said "I wanted to chat with people and learn something", but the truth is - he is sacrificing his time to give free legal advice to people. Very likeable guy.

He is so likeable that I have decided to room with him when our Construction team go to Sunshine Island, Brisbane in mid March for the annual retreat. Looking at the photos of the resort (Twin Water Resort - a 4.5 star resort), it looks like it is an exciting trip to look forward to.

As to my old firm, another friend in my LLB/PCLL year will be leaving in early March. It seems that it is a relief for people to leave my old firm. From my brief tele con with her, she gave me the impression that "the sooner I get out from this hell the better". In my circle of friends, only 3 are remaining there. I wish all good luck!

Happy Valentines Day

Happy Valentines Day to everyone!

The relationship between Ellen and I has risen to a level that no special gift or arrangement is necessary in celebration of the day....so apart from an bunch of roses at an inflated price, we had a simple dinner + dessert for the day.



To make this blog more educational, below are some extracts as to the history of Valentines' Day

Valentine's Day started in the time of the Roman Empire. In ancient Rome, February 14th was a holiday to honour Juno. Juno was the Queen of the Roman Gods and Goddesses. The Romans also knew her as the Goddess of women and marriage. The following day, February 15th, began the Feast of Lupercalia.

The lives of young boys and girls were strictly separate. However, one of the customs of the young people was name drawing. On the eve of the festival of Lupercalia the names of Roman girls were written on slips of paper and placed into jars. Each young man would draw a girl's name from the jar and would then be partners for the duration of the festival with the girl whom he chose. Sometimes the pairing of the children lasted an entire year, and often, they would fall in love and would later marry.

Under the rule of Emperor Claudius II Rome was involved in many bloody and unpopular campaigns. Claudius the Cruel was having a difficult time getting soldiers to join his military leagues. He believed that the reason was that roman men did not want to leave their loves or families. As a result, Claudius cancelled all marriages and engagements in Rome. The good Saint Valentine was a priest at Rome in the days of Claudius II. He and Saint Marius aided the Christian martyrs and secretly married couples, and for this kind deed Saint Valentine was apprehended and dragged before the Prefect of Rome, who condemned him to be beaten to death with clubs and to have his head cut off. He suffered martyrdom on the 14th day of February, about the year 270. At that time it was the custom in Rome, a very ancient custom, indeed, to celebrate in the month of February the Lupercalia, feasts in honour of a heathen god. On these occasions, amidst a variety of pagan ceremonies, the names of young women were placed in a box, from which they were drawn by the men as chance directed.

The pastors of the early Christian Church in Rome endeavoured to do away with the pagan element in these feasts by substituting the names of saints for those of maidens. And as the Lupercalia began about the middle of February, the pastors appear to have chosen Saint Valentine's Day for the celebration of this new feaSt. So it seems that the custom of young men choosing maidens for valentines, or saints as patrons for the coming year, arose in this way.

I thought I was God of Gambling.....

and I lost big time in the annual playing cards game with my relatives! Blackjack, Carribean Poker, Mahjong and 鬥牛 - you name it and I blew it! But it was good fun all the way, and it is nice that Carribean Poker has invaded into our annual card game this year after establishing its presence in Macau casinos.

My lai see income has also dropped significantly. It is time for me to ask the married ones out for meal to pursue for the lai sees actively!

Kung Hei Fat Choy

Kung Hei Fat Choy my friends!

When I was small, 年初一 used to be a day of gambling with my cousins and relatives....mahjong, blackjack etc. $2 for a game. This year the day of gambling will probably take place on 年初三, and in anticipation of the day, I have bought six packs of playing cards from 7-11 tonite - because we will be simulating the game - Macau casinos style!

Instead, today I went to a few places to get the red packets and ate some incredible turnip cakes. Gosh, I like turnip cakes!

Try beat this game

The rule is simple.

There are 3 rows of marbles. You can take as many as you like in any row for your turn. Likewise the computer. Your objective is to let the computer takes the last marble.

I tried, I failed.....

http://www.transience.com.au/pearl.html

Macau Trip

The weekend before the commencement of my new role, we had a nice trip to Macau.

I had a magic recovery from my illness the morning we depart, and we boarded the Turbo Jet in the afternoon. We went to have some 緬甸 food at "三盞燈" and then went on to the kart racing track. While we are waiting for our turn, we played the 估錢 game where each of us will grab some coins in our hands and we will take turn to guess the total held in our hands. The winner takes all. Edmund, Cyrus, Christie and Simon were the big winners, and I was the big loser!

Our time has come and Simon, Cyrus, Edmund, Jo, Eva and I played the first round, but no matter how fast I drove, I couldn't seem to catch up with Cyrus and Simon. Then the 2nd round came and only Simon, Cyrus, Jo and I remained. The different acceleration and braking mechanism of 2 different karts made my life difficult (that's my excuse anyway!) and I crashed 3 times in my first 3 laps!

After a great sharkfin dinner at 寶石 restaurant, we then proceeded to get some souvenirs and Simon/Eva, Edmund went crazy to buy the 豬肉乾 etc.

Then it was time to make some money - the Sands! I have won $600 off their blackjack table and Cyrus / Christie went one better - they won $1300 on a 老虎機!!!! We took the 23:30 jet back Hong Kong and thanks to Jo's copy of 蒲王, we had something interesting to read on the turbojet!

My new role

I started my new role this Monday. I was quite tense for the last few days of my month long leave. Perhaps that made me sick again.

Anyway, things have been great so far. I got a nice room which the set up is pretty much the same as my old room but only this time it is a square room instead of a rectangular one. The window oversees the Bank of China Tower and erm....the ICAC and the carpark. But still, it is nice to have a room filled with posh hardwares - an 19" LCD monitor, a handsome chair etc.

The people there are predominantly Aussies. But they have been very nice and friendly to me, and that helps me settling in very well. I have been working closely with a senior associates who is a Christian who is a genuinely nice person - he kept telling me to leave office early after I got the work done. He was also nice enough to spend a lot of time explaining how the office operates etc to me. A top bloke!

The most pleasant surprise is that there is a fellow newcomer - an LLB colleague of mine and it is good to have someone you know to start with. Of course, I now get unlimited supply of Coke, Lemon Tea etc. which is NICE!

Long may it lasts!!!

Sick again???!!!

I should have known it...I have been making nightmares all night long. I saw myself in a classroom attending my first day of school (reflecting my imminent first day at work), and then there was the black strong guy climbing the scaffolds to reach the window beside my desk. That guy looks like the star actor in the Green Miles (which I have watched it in Taiwan last week).


Anyway, the guy approached me violently and accused me of possessing dangerous drugs! I was left speechless - I don't do cigarettes or alcohol, and you are accusing me of drugs???!!! Come on!!! The guy then asked me to open my mini-fridge to show him the contents....as to why I have brought my mini-fridge to school, I had no idea. I opened the fridge and was surprised to find some ice cream cones inside. I protested my innocence but the guy insisted that I would be going to prison as I have failed my drug test twice....and the mare goes on and on......

I visited the loo more times today than I did this week (well, literally) which puts my trip to Macau in doubt. Hope I can have a super recovery tonite and go on board tmr morning!

Blackjack Strategic Table

This is the ultimate stategic table for blackjack players. It reduces the advantage of the Banker to the minimum! Print it out and take it to Macau!!

Happy Birthday to Jo

Double Delight for Jo - happy birthday and happy job change!

Taiwan Trip - Day 4 (Final Day)

We had little time in our final day so we decided to stay close to the hotel. Ellen bought some souvenirs so as to use up all the Taiwanese money. Had lunch at a very nice restaurant called 魔法咖哩 and then boarded the air-bus.

That concluded our Taiwan trip!

Taiwan Trip - Day 3

We began the day with a trip to 西門丁. Had lunch at a restaurant called 可樂森林. After that, we walked around the teen-populated area for a while. Spent some time in an amusement centre playing the basketball throwing game and the picking-a-doll-from-the-machine-game. I am always good at these mini games and these are my collections!

I bought Jay Chow's Concert CD and Ellen bought some Taiwanese food as souvenirs. We had our dinner at 士林. There is a large food complex there with lots of Taiwanese food. This is the highlight of the trip for Ellen as she always wanted to fill her stomach with food from 士林.


Then it rained. Quite hard. We shopped around for quite a while at 士林 and decided that it is time to leave 士林 and went on to our next stop - 麻辣火鍋. We had 花枝丸,牛柏葉,枝竹,牛肉 etc. I like spicy food but not as spicy as 麻辣. I like curry or satay more.

Still we had our next stop - Holiday KTV. We wanted to go to 錢櫃KTV which was a grand and luxurious KTV but it was always fully booked so we settled on Holiday KTV. There are many songs (especially Jay Chow's) that cannot be found in Hong Kong, and I had a great time there!

Taiwan Trip - Day 2

Had a breakfast at 水美. Then set off to our 2nd hotel - Caesar Park Hotel which is located at the centre of Taipei City. The 捷運 station was just beneath the hotel, so the location is excellent.

We had lunch at 鼎泰豐 but there is not much difference between the food there and the Hong Kong shop. We then took a bus to 101 World Trade Centre. It is the tallest building in Asia and it definitely looks posh externally and internally. We bought tickets to the observatory tower on the 98/F and the lift is the quickest in Asia - it took us exactly 45 seconds to reach 98/F from the bottom.

The view from 98/F is not overwhelmingly impressive though. The landscape of Taiwan and the lack of tall buildings around made the view ordinary. The amazing thing was that you can see the clouds going below you - it was THAT tall.


There are some shops in the 101 World Trade Centre and there is a large Page One where Ellen bought a romance book by John Grisham (I thought he only writes court dramas!). We then had a coffee before setting off to our next destination - 忠孝路. We had a brief walk at the 饒河街夜市 and then it was dinner time.


We had a very nice Japanese-style BBQ buffet dinner at a very nice restaurant. It costs HK$100 for each head and I left with a very full stomach (which resulted in some bad consequence which I am not going to detail here!)

We then went to 誠品書店 after dinner but left empty handed.

Taiwan Trip - Day 1

Arrived at Taipei at 1:00pm. Checked in at 水美溫泉酒店. Being such a lazy person, I took a 1.5 hour nap in this nice hotel before going out. The first stop is 淡水 - 漁人碼頭. We were surprised to see that there is virtually nothing there apart from this footbridge.

After our extremely short stay at the 漁人碼頭 which can only be describe as "走馬看花", we returned to 淡水老街. It is an area filled with small shops selling various kinds of stuff including one selling condoms (with different favours, shapes...etc.) We had some Taiwanese snacks there including cuttlefish balls etc. We also had a bowl of Beef Noodles but it was not good as I thought.


We returned to the hotel at 9:30pm and had a hotspring bath. The hotspring bath was located indoor and rather clean but it was not as spacious as the one we had in Hokkaido 2 years ago. After finishing the hotspring bath, we went to have an ice cream at McDonalds outside the hotel.

Winning Eleven 2 Heavy Strikers 1

In writing this report, I must say I am still very emotional. We won deservedly by 2 goals to 1, and it probably should have been more. Everyone played their parts and the defence was particularly resolute in repelling the constant high balls towards the 2 heavy strikers.

We scored our first goal at the end of the first half, when I steered the ball into the net after receiving Fai's shot-cum-pass. We held on to the lead until midway through the 2nd half, when No.11 of Heavy Strikers pulled, pushed and strangled me to the ground inside the area. The ref made one of the few good decisions of the afternoon and awarded the penalty. I scored the 2nd.

The ref immediately made a very bad decision after a good one. He awarded the other side's a penalty after the ball rebounded off one of our player's hand via a headed clearance. This should never be a penalty - the ref should realise what constitute a hand-ball and a ball-hand. We held on to the 2-1 victory till the final whistle.

What makes me so emotional was the attitude of Heavy Strikers' captain - No.11 Yuen Ka Cheong Samuel. He (It) is a living creature of the lowest order. Everyone knows what he did to me in our past meetings. In our first season in the LSCOBA football league, the creature kicked me all over the park and was still arrogant enough to say things like "shut up, I recognise who you are. I am your senior, and you should watch your steps.". He even refused to retreat for a free kick by standing right in front of the ball and pose a hard-man image. After the game, he further issued threats to me by saying "watch out on the LSCOBA chatboard - news can be spread easily" etc. I was very upset at the time as the creature was simply retaliating after he was being outcasted in the match.

Our next meeting was in the 7-a-side match before the start of the 2nd season. It again targeted me and bullied me all over the match. In the second half, I received a pass in the centre circle and dribbled past it. It made a sliding tackle on my right ankle and not the ball, and I was down injured immediately. I was taken into hospital and my right ankle was scanned to be broken. I can't walk properly for the whole of 8 months before I can kick a ball again. The creature never apologised.

Today is the first meeting between us after my injury. The creature again was its usual hard and unfair self. It was evident from the start that the creature and I didn't see eye to eye, but our first explosive contact was in the 2nd half when he strangled me to ground which led to our 2nd goal. I tried to control myself and didn't say a word when the creature said "Shut up young man" and put his finger to its lips signalling me to shut up. The funny thing was, I didn't say a word! Then I told him he should be the one to shut up and I reminded it that it had broken my ankle 2 years ago.

It marked me for the rest of the match and we nearly had our next explosive contact when it marked me before our corner was taken. I am lucky to escape unharmed this time.

This creature was so such a disgrace to itself to the extent that its teammates should be ashamed to be playing alongside it. I am ashamed that this creature is my fellow old boy. I have decided not to play against Hravy Strikers in the future (when the creature was still in it) and my 2 goals against them this afternoon will hopefully condemn them to First Division football next season and never to be seen in the Premier Division again.

Nokia 6260 v Sony Ericsson i700

Finally the time for my trusted Nokia 8210 to retire has come. It has served me well for the past 2 years and it's still in excellent condition to say the least.

Finding the replacement is not an easy job, and it has taken me months to shortlist and analyse the interesting candidates. The day has come and it was really down to 2 candidates - Nokia 6260 and Sony Ericsson i700.

Appearance-wise, Sony Ericsson are 2 streets ahead, but its price is also $1000+ more expensive. It is one of the best mobile phones for taking pictures and videos, but it is like talking to a digital camera.

Nokia 6260 is not as handsome but it is probably worth the money. To go with the phone, there are also a bucket of freebies including a blue tooth.

After weighing all the strengths and weaknesses of the 2 finalists lasting over 2 hours today, I finally made the choice...............and the winner is ................

Still Very Sick

Still very sick today. Had to cancel the anniversary dinner with Ellen. Spent 80% of my day in bed, and the rest of the 20% on playing computer, updating this blog and watching classic Sherlock Holmes DVDs.

3 Years Ago Today

What happened?

• I was working on Project Rich with Conrad and was having a prolonged meeting at the Printer from 9am to 7pm
• I returned to office after leaving Printer and began updating the V-notes
• Ellen bought a take away dinner for me and became my girlfriend

What have happened since then?

• Tanrich was listed on the Main Board
  
• I was admitted 1 year later, and Ellen was admitted 2 years later (I moved her admission)
  
• I have changed job once, and Ellen twice
• I have gained 30lbs through lots of eating and sleeping
• We have been to Sapporo - Hokkaido, Bangkok, Kota Kinabalu, Osaka, Bali and will be going to Taipei soon
• I won the Golden Boot last year and will be looking to repeat the same this year
• My dad was awarded the Bronze Bauhinia Medal
• My cousin got married which I was the best man. I was also best man for Gary and Agnes' wedding
• My sister went to university
• Ellen has operated a dozen White Terrorist Attack which I escaped unscrathed.

Winning Eleven 1 Wu Dang 2

We lost our 2nd match of the season against the champion last year, so on paper this is not a bad result. We took the lead midway through the 1st half through a Po Tak Chi long shot which bounced wickedly before it reached their keeper.

Wu Dang soon equalised through a corner (which should not be given in the first place), and we didn't create too many chances afterwards. Kenward had a shot covered by their keeper who held the ball well, and Arthur saw a header wide after getting into the backpost from a corner from Sean.

We conceded our 2nd goal through a close range header by Wu Dang. We tried to get the goal back but in vain. Sing had a last chance but his left foot strike was not on target.

Nevertheless, there were some encouraging signs from the match. We had 19 players on the pitch and on the bench altogether, and we didn't simply fold against better opponents. We gave them a good match, and we are still staying in a healthy league position.

Mouse Problem

My mouse also appears to be sick as well. Sometimes it scrolls like normal, and sometimes it just wouldn't move no matter how I dragged it. Is it because it is wireless? Anyone give me some hints on how to solve this problem?

Sick

I. Am. Very. Sick. Today.

Amazing underwater photos

Sennes has recently returned from The Phils (Dumaguete) with many amazing underwater pictures. Here are some:-

大掃除

I know it is early, but I had my "big sweep out" (大掃除) few days ago. I started at 22:30 and finished at 02:30, and I had thrown away so many precious collections of mine. Actually all my precious collections are soccer magazines which I began to collect since 1986.

The soccer magazines were in such a big pile that I had no choice but to throw them away to free up more space, and I am still trying to clear up the "unread" magazines as early as May 2000. That means, I am still reading the magazines before the Euro Championship in Belgium / Holland in 2000 (not to mention Japorea 2002!)

Many of those magazines have now ceased business. 奪標, Match, 90 Minutes, Soccerstars, GOAL, Total Football and Match of the Day. The only remaining publications are FourFourTwo and World Soccer. FourFourTwo is by far the best soccer magazines ever.


The stuff that I threw away


The Panini football stickers (90, 94 World Cups and Premier League 95) and cards that I used to collect when I was young


This is the "unread" magazines....my gosh

Asian Blog Award Voting is Over

Thanks to everyone who have voted this blog. I have successfully reached my goal - not to stay bottom. I will let you know my overall ranking when it is announced.

Daylight Robbery - Man U 0 Spurs 0

One of the most controversial refereeing decisions ever! I stayed up so late until 6am in the morning to watch the live match at Old Trafford, and at the end we were robbed! Missing Defoe, Kanoute, Brown, Davis, Davies and Atouba, we fielded some youngsters Marney (the 2 goal hero last week) , Ziegler (whose display was very impressive but he needs to improve on his final ball) and Ricketts.

We defended for 80% of the match, but still managed to get some counter attack. On 89th minute, Carroll cleared the ball as far as Mendes on the halfway line, Mendes lobbed the ball high towards the goal and Carroll ran back in time to grasp the ball.....but dropped it about 2 yards over the goal line. Everyone except the linesman and the referee knew it was a goal, but it was not to be! I was left so shocked. If this was not a goal, what would be? It has to be the worst refereeing decision ever made, and not only did it rob Spurs 3 points against Man U, it also deprived me of an estimate of an extra $10,000 for the jackpot for the HKJC "Double HT- FT Result Jackpot".

A goal or not....you to decide.

Webcam

I bought my webcam few months ago, but have never really used it. Finally got the chance to use it last week with Davy. Nice to see you man!

2 CD Review

There are 10 tracks (but 9 songs) in this CD (left). The cover design is one of the best of his albums and the songs are not bad too. 01. 空中飛人 is a typical "lum" song which was written by Hacken, and the subjects of the song are 田亮 and 郭晶晶. 04. 佳節 and 06. 聽傷口說話 are 2 other very good songs tailor made for Hacken.



The Hacken + Joey concert was definitely one of my biggest regrets of 2004. I would have got tickets if it was on general sale, but there was nothing I can do when the only way to get the tickets was through ID credit card. In this CD, 2 of favourite singers sang each other's songs and I could not wait for Karaoke to be released!

New Year, New Template

Don't worry, it is still my blog. Just that it has changed to a new template. Of course, this template was "stolen" from the web, but it looks great eh?

I wish everyone a Happy New Year and every good luck in 2005!

Asian Blog Award - Vote for me!

The blog you are reading is nominated for the Best Asian Newcomer in 2004. Please cast your vote for Glory Glory Tottenham Hotsblog. But remember, you can only vote once each day. Do it now!

Merry Christmas!!!

Had a big Christmas feast on Silent night. See the Christmas Cake and tarts!


Then on Boxing Day, we unwrapped our presents.


See the 2 watches at the bottom....they cost me my 1 month salary!

This is what I got:


A tiny fridge from Ellen


A sweater from my sister and cuff links from my father


A collection of Coke from my mother

Merry Christmas!!!

Today afternoon, I spent all I have earned in 30 days in 30 minutes on Christmas presents....hope my parents like them!

Harbour City

Davy - Mr. Nice Guy

Got an unexpected call from Davy tonite. It was wonderful to receive his call. We haven't spoken on phone since he left for Newcastle 1.5 years ago. Davy made the brave decision to resign and further his studies in Newcastle alone -a place where he knew no one when he arrived.

Davy is really one of the nicest guy I have ever known - the kind of friendly, loyal, down-to-earth, sincere, funny and honest type. And he is SINGLE! So if any girl is interested, please leave your name and number.....

Thank you...

I have to thank all of you who have been so supportive to me over the past few years. I am so lucky to have you guys around!

More photos...

Connie (also known as Li Tie) and me

One of the nicest girls you will ever meet - Karin

My good neighbour for my last 12 months at D


The good girls of P&A

Photos showing the nice people at D

I have taken a lot of photographs with many nice people over the last few days. I will try to upload as many of them as possible here. Stay tuned for updates. I am planning to write something to recapture my memories of my 4+ years adventure at D, but it is getting late tonite. I'll leave it to tomorrow....


Our team minus the leader, PK

6 girls, me and the transsexual

The new F4

1 King 5 Queens

Mixed feelings

Getting the offer from M.E. is definitely the perfect Christmas present for me. I was so delighted when I got told the news. Life at D has become rather stale for me (to put it mildly), and this is the time for me to move on. I miss my colleagues, the banters outside my room, the tea breaks...etc. I hate to say it, but it was not a difficult decision to make.

It is very nice to have a bunch of nice colleagues doing farewell lunch with me, and I have received so many emails after the announcement of my departure. All these are very touching. Sometimes you do not realise you have so many friends until you leave the place. To be frank, I have never thought that so many people will attend my farewell lunches. Thank you again to all of you!

Some emails I received are quite funny / revealing / touching, examples are:

I am so sorry to hear that you're leaving. Come to think of it, I will need you to sign the Witness Statement and perhaps attend the trial in March!!!!!!!! Oh noooooooooooooooooo...............

Another one:

Are you sure you have enough egg tart for everybody?

This one really strikes me:

I'll see you at lunch tomorrow but all the best in your new job. I'm really happy for you and I'm glad you found a firm that appreciates your expertise. We'll miss you.

Someone may follow my steps soon....

A bit shock to hear this news. Hope that I have a chance to send the same email as yours in the near future. Wish u every success in your new job and enjoy your long vacation!

Lastly, this is from a junior staff of a client who I bumped into during lunch. I took her to court for a watching brief once before:

Just know that today is your last day in Deacons, wanna say thank you for your teaching and sharing, and hope you every success in the future. Let's come out to gather if you have time! Keep touching!

Yeah...

How things can change in a week!

I was complaining and moaning about work on 16 Dec. Then on.....

17 Dec, 11:30 - received call from agent who told me I got an offer from M.E.
17 Dec, 11:30 - 12:00 - locked myself in room and considered my options
17 Dec, 12:05 - 12:20 - began to speak to some friends, listened to their advice and made up my mind to leave
17 Dec, 12:30 - 12:40 - called PK on phone and told him my decision. PK fully understood my reasons for leaving.
17 Dec, 12:45 - 14:10 - talked to 2 close friends through lunch, and had the first peak of the offer.
17 Dec, 14:30 - 15:00 - typed out my resignation letter. (I forgot to date the letter....gosh!)
17 Dec, 15:00 - 15:15 - told DK about it. Thanks for understanding.
17 Dec, 15:20 - 15:30 - handed in my resignation letter to AL. He was half-expecting it and asked me not to worry.
17 Dec, 15:35 - 17:50 - began to spread the news. I was too excited.
17 Dec, 18:25 - 18:45 - spoke to Mr. P. This time, he was pretending to be a fatherly figure. Said that my decision was a natural one, how much I have improved and how he was impressed...blah blah blah...all bullshit for the whole of 20 mins.

20 Dec, 09:00 - 09:45 - signed my contract.
20 Dec, 13:00 - 14:00 - my 1st farewell lunch

21 Dec, 13:00 - 14:00 - my 2nd farewell lunch
21 Dec, 14:30 - 18:00 - shocked some people by emailing all my colleagues about my departure. Calmed them down by the nice egg tarts

22 Dec, 12:45 - 12:55 - received the cheque, signed some papers and returned my door access card etc.
22 Dec, 13:00 - 14:10 - my 3rd farewell lunch
22 Dec, 14:15 - 14:45 - did my final "lap of honour" on 29/F.

That's it. End of my 4 years 3 months' association with D.

A game of waiting

I vividly remember that there was an advertisement of online movie ticketing system (is it the cityline?) which shows images of people spending time in waiting for this and that. The producer might just wish to place a hidden camera in my room in the office which will surely achieve the same effect.

I have been very busy and have been kept until very late hours recently. But around 50% of my time was spent in waiting. I know I have moaned about it before, but this is really driving me nuts! Take last night as an example, I spent my last 3 hours in office waiting for Mr. P. Doing absolutely nothing, Mr. P rang me and said "Everthing's ok, you may leave". I was in the lift 3 seconds later...

The waiting game is repeating itself days after days. What a torture.

You know, I am waiting for an important phone call. Just a call and my life will change I tell you. Please, don't keep me waiting.

Ellen, me, mini-me and the birthday cake

Seems that I am going to kill mini-me

My Birthday Lunch

at Heaven on Earth. Thanks guys!


From left to right: Me, Ellen, Christy, Cyrus, Christie, Jo and Rudy

My Birthday Present

The mud-made mini-me in Spurs kit! I love it soooooooo much! Thank you Ellen!

2am on Sunday night (Monday morning)

So I am still in the office. Sunday night (or rather Monday morning) at 2am! I just don't know what's going on here. Although I have been in office since 1pm on Sunday afternoon (over 13 hours), only 5 -6 hours were really productive. The rest of the time was spent on waiting for Mr. Pretender. I call it POOR TIME MANAGEMENT AND EVEN POORER MAN MANAGEMENT.

In Mr. Pretender's sphere, the others (including me) are just objects that evolved around his world. He can use them anytime he wants, without realising that the objects do have their own lives. He just didn't give enough respect or consideration to them. This is what I hate Mr. Pretender more than 2 years ago, and I still hate him for this reason now.

Honestly, I am really on the brink of quitting. Not that I could not stand long hours or hard work, but to spend the time like this is just absolutely unreasonable and unjustifiable. The kind of long days is not limited to today or yesterday. It also includes the past 2 weeks and I consider this as the worst working experience in my 4 year plus career. I know it is still more to come for the coming month but I hope I can call it a day before then. I have to.

Winning Eleven 5 Paul Smith 0

A 9:00 kick off this morning. Woke up at 7:45 and decided to lie on the bed for another 5 minutes. The "5 minutes" became "50 minutes" (as always), and I opened my eyes to see that it was already 8:50!

A crazy rush of getting changed, brushing my teeth and driving made sure that I arrived at the ground at 9:05 (a miracle in itself) and the match hadn't even begun! But my lateness dropped me on the subs bench with 3 others.

With only 10 players from Paul Smith, we dominated the match from start to finish. And there were some really nice goals too. We established a 2-0 lead by half time thanks to some great team movement and passing. Kenward headed in the 1st goal after Alwin cushioned the cross from Po Tak Pong to his perfect path, and Derek scored the 2nd after Kelvin chested the ball down from a high cross into the area.

In the 2nd half, I scored with a direct 20 yard free kick to the left of the penalty box. It curls into the top corner of the net ala Hassler style. I am well pleased with this goal! Few minutes later, Kevin was infringed in the area, and the ref pointed to the spot despite strong protests from the other side. To be fair, I would not have called for the penalty if I was the ref. Anyway, I placed the ball on the spot and the keeper tried to play some psychological game on me by constantly walking away from the goal line making silly enquiries with the ref. (e.g. How long till the end of the match? etc) But I was not affected by this kind of gesture and slotted the ball into the bottom corner of the net. It was close though as one yard to the left would see the ball hit the post and one yard to the right would see it saved by the keeper.

That's the end of my involvement of the match thanks to the inspired substitution of Ah Chow! :-) (I have played 3 minutes of first half and 10 minutes of 2nd half - and was substituted because I scored 2!) Po Tak Pong scored another goal to seal up our victory in our last match of 2004.

It should have been 6-0 as I have a goal disallowed for handball, but I swear that I was not even close to touching the ball with my hand. It was interesting that the ref and Kenward saw my handball, Ken said it was the opponent's hand and I didn't see anyone handball!

Quite Gay!

Rudy took all the limelight at the annual dinner last night by making "her" appearance on stage as a woman with full make up and dress and everything in a dancing performance! I think this is what they called "sacrifice for art". You are god damn good Rudy! Can I have a $50 bet that you will be made partner next year?

However, Rudy's dressing as a woman is not very gay still. Two men standing next to each other and taking pictures of themselves with one holding the camera by his [her] outstretched arm in the office is indeed quite guy in my humble opinion.

Boos....

A round of boos for the followings on my birthday though.....

1. Annual dinner
2. Mr. Pretender
3. Time wasted in waiting for instructions (from Mr. Pretender)
4. My digital camera (it is not as handy as I would have liked)
5. Annual dinner again

Happy Birthday!!!

I had a very nice 27th Birthday yesterday.

I have received some really nice presents, including a very very very lovely "mini-me" - the slimmer and [more] handsome 2005 version, in the Spurs 2004-5 kit and number "18" on the back from Ellen. It is indeed very very cute and I loooooooooove it soooooooo much!!!! THANK YOU!!!

Domain and Daisy also gave me presents -- a box of Lucullus Chocolate and a Swarovski crystal plant respectively. Thank you thank you!

My good friends treat me to a very good lunch at one of my favourite restaurants in Central (Heaven on Earth) and thank you for the birthday cake!! And another set of good guys and gals took me to Karaoke (with another birthday cake) after the annual dinner. Thank you all of you (you know who you are)!

Thanks to my family for the birthday dinner on Thursday - Oyster Bar at Sheraton and the cufflinks (again from Swarovski!!).

Also a big thank you to all those who have sent emails, e-cards or sms to me. I am touched to say the least!

Last but not least, I thank all the Spurs supporters over on GGnet and Topspurs for leaving Happy Birthday messages to me! Come on you SPURS! Give me a big present by beating Man City today!! (Note: They did - with an 1-0 victory!)

Happy Birthday, honey!

Hey, happy birthday to my dearest Mr. Fat!!!

Too bad that your birthday clashes with your firm's annual dinner- that means i can't celebrate with you! But the good thing is- i had a great oyster dinner tonight at "Suraton" in TST!!! Thank you!!!

So no more coke, no more football and no more... (you know what it is, don't you?- be polite in your speech) ...

X'mas Candies

I have picked the Santa Claus one on the right.

Birthday Dinner

Nice birthday dinner for Amanda and me at New Gutsee at Lee Garden 2. Thank you guys so much. It is so nice to take a break from work and enjoy a good Shangainese dinner.

From Top Left to Bottom Right: J-A-E-G-A (Find an R, and we will be Jaegar...)

Farewell

16,000 people attended the memorial ceremony of Mr. James Wong at the Hong Kong Stadium this afternoon. From the live broadcast, it is notable that people from all walks of life and all age groups attending the ceremony - it is a fitting tribute to someone who have contributed so much to Hong Kong throughout his lifetime.


The Late Mr. James Wong

Wordcount

Another cool link.....

WordCount™ is an artistic experiment in the way we use language. It presents the 86,800 most frequently used English words, ranked in order of commonality. Each word is scaled to reflect its frequency relative to the words that precede and follow it, giving a visual barometer of relevance. The larger the word, the more we use it. The smaller the word, the more uncommon it is.

10 x 10

Check this out....keeping track of history.

10x10™ ('ten by ten') is an interactive exploration of the words and pictures that define the time. The result is an often moving, sometimes shocking, occasionally frivolous, but always fitting snapshot of our world. Every hour, 10x10 collects the 100 words and pictures that matter most on a global scale, and presents them as a single image, taken to encapsulate that moment in time. Over the course of days, months, and years, 10x10 leaves a trail of these hourly statements which, stitched together side by side, form a continuous patchwork tapestry of human life.

Work Work Work

Looking back, it has been 20 days since I had my last "totally work-free" day. Worse still, I believe those working weekends can be avoided. Last week, I had to serve the mad client which I had to go to office to do some faxes at midnight. This week, it is the boss ("the Pretender") who asked me to go through all the affirmations and witness statements to perform the ultimate "human track changer".

It is sooooooo frustrating for me. So so frustrating as this is an absolutely meaningless task, and I have to hand in my work to him tomorrow.

Don't get me wrong. It is not like I do not enjoy being busy. If I was kept busy by performing meaningful task, I would not have so much to complain. I am pissed because this task is neither 1) urgent 2) meaningful or 3) reasonable.

Mango and Carriana 1 Winning Eleven 0

I am terribly busy and really have no time to write this match report. If anyone can do it this time, it will be much appreciated.

Meanwhile, an email from Kenward...give it a thought:

Strategic Managers, We probably once again exposed our greatest weakness as a team: lack of strategies. We don't seem to have a clue when facing packed defenders that stuff inside the box area.We don't need anything fancy, but at least we should set up an offensive strategy for everyone to follow. I look forward to your game plan proposal ;> For me, this time I am proposing myself at the left midfield. That's pretty much our 5C style attack model. Po Tak Pong should stay at leftwing so that he can run less to get to the base line.

P.S. My brothers were at LG1 and they said it was VERY OBVIOUS that Ng Chi Ho was offside by at least 4 bodies that was not called for, and Lam Lok Kwan was not even close to being offside in return. Some people "claim" that Carrianan "bribe"the referees. Well......

Chinese Lyrics of our School Song by Uncle James

Uncle James was a dedicated LaSallian, and he has written the Chinese lyrics for our school song.

# 豪 情 少 年 敢 為 敢 作
一 身 朝 氣 心 向 上
人 行 正 途 艱 危 不 怕
我 會 盡 心 全 力 幹

合 唱:
有 幸 做 好 喇 沙 書 院 友
重 遇 我 往 昔 同 窗
不 管 天 陰 天 晴 日
我 地 齊 聲 將 此 曲 唱

# 云 云 教 壇 書 堂 精 舍
各 有 當 世 好 印 象
唯 從 有 成 英 雄 榜 看
母 校 突 出 人 共 仰

# 抬 頭 向 長 空 求 指 引
放 眼 高 闊 天 際 望
昂 昂 志 朝 彩 雲 深 處
與 母 校 青 雲 共 上

# 同 門 友 誼 因 時 俱 進
當 天 歡 笑 不 變 樣
良 朋 滿 堂 欣 然 相 對
母 校 校 歌 來 合 唱

The World Lost a Genius Today

The word "Genius" was invented to describe talents like the late Mr. James Wong. His multi-talents are recognised all over the Chinese community and his works and words will leave a lasting impression in the history of La Salle, Hong Kong and the Chinese community all over the world.

I am sorry that I have not had the opportunity to get to know the great man, but he was, is and will forever be my idol. To me, Uncle James is someone who speaks what his mind thinks, someone who was never shy to admit mistakes openly, someone who appreciates life so cheerfully and someone who always brings joy to people. People like Uncle James only appear once in 1 million years, and I cannot identify any other living person in Hong Kong who can take his unique place.

24 Nov 2004 - the day when the world loses a Genius. May the Genius's soul rest in peace.

Hotpot at Little Fat Sheep - Rudy's birthday

Lau Ying Hung or me? 

I'm Just a Woman...

Since my college years, I have been given nicknames for resemblance of others. From my recollection, I have been said to resemble Hacken Lee (for my forehead and voice), Wong Ka Kui of Beyond (for my hairstyle in Form 2 - a curly divider in the middle), Athena Chu (for I don't know what!), Chan Ho (for my mouth)....etc.

Last Saturday, I was said to look like 柳影紅 (for my eyes and mouth). For God sake, I don't even know who she is, but it certainly is not a praise in any account.

Happy Birthday to..............

Ellen's Dad, Gordon, Alwin, Rudy, Karin.....etc, whose birthdays are around this time.

Time to issue my first reminder that my birthday is around the corner!

Digestion problem

It will be a long hard time for work from today onwards to, at least, Feb 2005 (provided I will survive the salary committee meeting later this week). Asked to read a huge bulk of pleadings, affirmations and witness statements for the January trial. The supporting exhibits are said to be contained in 50 box files. OMG!

It is hard just to read them, let alone to digest them.

Winning Eleven 3 Fortune Re-united 2

Who honestly would have thought that a team that have lost all the games in the Premier Division 2 years ago would now sit proudly at the top after 3 games? The best thing is that we won our all 3 games in style with goals coming from all angles. Winning Eleven is definitely the most entertaining team at present.

Fortune is not a bad team in any account, as they have proved during the whole match that they can pass, defend, attack and Fortune was probably a bit unlucky not to claim 1 point from the game thanks to the superb goalkeeping and defence of Winning. The bar also saved Winning on one occasion.

The team for the match is:

GK - Leung Ka Kit
RB - Raymond
LB - Ken
CB - Arthur
CB - Yu Hiu To
RM - Ah Chow
LM - Eric
CM - Sean
CM - Sing
FC - Kenward
FC - James

Sub - Gordon
Sub - Ma Tau
Sub - Po Tak Pong
Sub - Matthew
Sub - Derek

Plato was also present at the match as a cameraman. I will try to post up the video clips for the goals of the match later.

As usual, we enjoyed the first 10 minutes, but gradually faded out midway through the first half. Fortune scored a breakaway goal on the counter attack with 25 minutes gone, but Winning was determined to carry on its excellent form and came back strongly. Chow had twisted and turned Fortune's left back for 4 or 5 times, and it was unfortunate that no one could benefit from his various deliveries.

On the 30 minute mark, Winning won a corner on the left, and since Sean had been substituted at that stage, it was Raymond who took the corner. His inswinging corner was perfect and the ball evaded the keeper and fell nicely onto my head. I managed to rise above the defender marking me and thumped home a powerful header. 1-1.

Not satisfied with the draw at half time, Winning made several substitutions and brought on some fresh legs. It proved fruitful minutes before the half time. Raymond started the move in midfield, played a clever ball past the opponent, and spotted one of the fresh legs Gordon on the right. According to Chow after the match, the opponent's left back was feeling very confused after being tricked by Chow's dribbling for the earlier part of the match. That might explain why Gordon the Birthday Boy was left unmarked on the right. Gordon took one touch on the ball, and I was screaming to him that if he could cross the ball, it would be a goal. That was exactly what happened as Gordon made a delicate cross from the right ala David Beckham, and I sprinted towards the ball in the 6 yard box to head it in. 2-1. What a comeback!

At half time, we decided to make a number of substitutions and Ma Tau was put to the front partnering Sing. The move was intended to consolitate our midfield possession as Derek and Sean were both good at winning the ball which was crucial to our possession.

The 2nd half started and as expected, Fortune was piling up the pressure and they used some nice crossing to trouble our defence. however, our defenders stood strong and Leung Ka Kit pushed a cross shot onto the bar and it rebounded at a nice spot where Fortune could not take advantage of. His full stretched dive was another superb block and Derek was also our saviour in blocking a goalbound shooting chance inside the area.

At the other end, Ma Tau worked hard to charge down a clearance of Fortune. On the left edge of the area and spotting the keeper was out, Ma Tau lobbed the keeper with ease. 3-1, and it gave us an "insurance goal". That insurance goal proved to be important as Fortune forced the ball in with 10 minutes to go. We held on and had Chow or I scored from our chances, we would be winning by a bigger margin. At the final whistle, we have beaten Fortune 3-2 and continued our great run, with 9 points from 3 games.

It was definitely another breathtaking match, but we must be cautious not to take it for granted. There are a lot of good teams in the Premier Division and while we have virtually been assured of our place in this Division for another season, we should try to get as many points as possible. On the current run, where teams have been dropping points here and there, we are in a perfect pole position to make a decent challenge for the title. Who knows?

On a personal note, I am leading the top scorer chart with 4 goals and the nearest rival had 2. If I recall correctly, the top scorer of the Premier Division won the Golden Boot Award with 6 or 7 goals. That means I need 2 or 3 more goals to get level with last season's record. Given my good run of form, I will be looking at 10 to 12 goals this season. If I could achieve this, I am sure Winning Eleven would be placed in the top 3 of the Division as well.

As usual, your comments will be very much appreciated.

Spurs 4 Arse 5 - Heartbroken

What a game, what a crazy game. Every player played their hearts out, and individual defensive errors have undone our efforts. Naybet is too slow, and it was his 3 mistakes that led to 3 goals being conceded. Robinson and King also played not as good as they could have.

Brown, a player I don't really rate, played very well, and absolutely made his presence felt against the likes of Vieira. Carrick also played very well. A crazy end to end stuff and if our defence did their job, we could have beaten the scums. I am so heartbroken now.

Live Update - Spurs 1 Arsenal 1

Half time - 1:1
I am so nervous and excited sitting in my room watching the live broadcast. The German Legend Jurgen Klinsmann is at the game as well. Spurs played so well up to this moment, Brown and Carrick particularly impressive. We took the lead at around 37 mins through Naybet and the Scum equalised right before half time. It is such an anti climax.

I am watching the TV, shouting and screaming at every scoring opportunities Spurs had and clapping at every good move. I was nearly in tears! It is a feeling no one would understand unless you are an avid supporter of a team. Supporting Spurs is even more nail biting as we are not winning as frequently as some other teams do, and a victory over the bitter rivals is the best feeling in the world.

I should have been there, you know...

Spurs v Arsenal Preview - It is a war

It is the fixture every Spurs fans will look for when the fixture list comes out. It is not only a game, it is a WAR. One of the most fierciest derbies in the world, and it is one which I should be watching INSIDE the White Hart Lane. As I mentioned someway down the post, I have planned to go to this fixture (as well as the Charlton game) back in August, and for this only reason alone, I bought my membership card. But things never turn out that good for me, and I have to watch it at home in Hong Kong.

By reading other Spurs fans' words on other forum (gg.net and topspurs.com) on the build up to the game, it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. It is soooooooooo important to get a result against the Scum. I remember the anger and emotions of me when I watched the reverse fixture of last season - all the divings by the Scum players, especially by Pires and Cole. I also remember the excitement and joy that I derived by the two late goals by Spurs to get the draw at home last season. I can even remember the Popescu winner in the Klinsmann / Dumitrescu / Barmby / Sheringham / Anderton era in 1994/95 season.

The statistics tell us that Spurs have only lost twice in 12 meetings at home to the Scums since the formation of Premier League, and the recent 4 games have all been draws. I would say that given the poor forms by the 2 sides in recent weeks, it would probably end up in another draw. I've put my money on 1-1 and 2-2.

Jol - New Manager of Spurs

Jol was confirmed as Spurs manager. He had a good start by beating Burnley 3-0 away. Let's hope his working relationship with Frank Arnesen will be better than the one with Santini the odd one out.

Some photos from Jay Chow's concert

Jay Chow and me!

Jay Chow in Concert 

Jay Chow in Concert 

Jay Chow in Concert 

Jay Chow in Concert

Got tickets for the front row. Well, it is not exactly front row, because there were still 2 rows for journalists in front of my seat.

This is the 2nd time I've been to Jay Chow's concert. I attended one 2 years ago, and I only knew about 30% of his songs then. This time I knew about 75% of the songs, but it is a bit disappointing that he didn't sing "Black Humour", one of his best known songs. Despite this, I rate his performance 8/10.

One observation: Jay Chow's memorising of the lyrics must be as bad as Alan Tam.

Top Ten Basic Needs of Yours Truly

Top Ten Basic Needs of Yours Truly

1. Computer with Broadband
2. Coca Cola
3. Cable TV
4. Air conditioner
5. www.betfair.com & www.livescore.com
6. Chicken Soft Bone
7. Spurs
8. Car
9. FM2005
10. Mobile phone

Return my Inbox to me!

Just when you think the sudden break down of my computer is enough, my trusted Nokia 8310 decided to compound on my misfortune and deleted all my Inbox messages which I have kept them since 3 years ago. Some of them are memorable - I probably would not get the same (or similar) messages again.

I believe the deletion of the messages was done by the latest SMS-virus. Before the damage was done, I received a message on my phone from "Unreadable". When I opened the message, there was a string of numbers. When I deleted the message, the whole Inbox was gone.

Norton Anti-Virus for mobile anyone?

What's wrong?

Just when I thought I had the weekend to enjoy my FM2005, my computer somehow felt an sudden urge that it had to break down. So all in a sudden, 90% of my activities including FM2005, football betting, blog updating...etc. had to be stopped.

How I wanted a 24 hour convenient computer fixing store is beyond words.

FM2005

Finally it has arrived. Started off being Spurs manager.

Won 8-0 (!!!) away to Frankfurt in my first pre-season, then was beaten by Motherwell 0-2. Then comfortably beaten Shrewsbury and Derby 2-1. Still yet to make any signings but I am looking for a loan signing in the right midfield as Davies will be out for 2 months.

Get your copy now.

I should be in London now

Yes, I should be in a B&B at Victoria right now. Should be ready to get changed at 10am, then go to the internet cafe to place my bets and get the latest team information. Should be at Victoria Station at 12:30 and get the train to White Hart Lane. After getting off the train, I should be on the street with souvenirs and match programmes sellers. I should be going straight to the club shop to have a crazy pre-Christmas shopping. At 2pm, I should be waiting in front of the main gate to see the likes of Mabbutt etc. driving their Benz past it and I should get a few autographs.
At 2:30pm, I should be going through the turnstiles and walking to my seat. At 2:50pm, I should be cheering the entrance of the teams. It is Spurs v Charlton today, and I should be there.

That is what I should be doing today, but thanks to my employer. You wrecked my dream. Feck it.

What the Hell Santini?

Just weeks into his reign at Spurs, Santini has walked out of the club for personal reasons. What could that personal reasons be? Poor team performance? Bust up with Carrick? I think the most probable reason is the 3-in-a-bed management of Santini, Jol and Arnesen just didn't work.

After a search of a manager for the whole of last season, we are now again without a manager. I hope Jol will get installed soon. He has been with the club and his relationship with Arnesen should see him going to the top of our management hierarchy. At least he will be in charge of the game tonite against Charlton.

Santini's reign has saw us keeping it tight at the back, but toothless at the front. We enjoyed good away performances against Newcastle (1-0), Everton (1-0) and Chelsea (0-0) but our home form is not as encouraging (1-1 with Liverpool is not exactly an excellent result).

Now our season is again in shambles unless Jol can steady the ship, starting with Charlton tonite.

My prediction: 1-1 draw

Winning Eleven 2 J Hill 1

An outstanding team performance and a pulsulating match saw us move to the top of the Premier Division after 2 games. It was also a special match for me as I scored both goals (although I should have had 4 if I had taken all the chances).

It was expected to be a tough match, as J Hill was consisted of several old school team members in Lai Yee Lai etc.

Leung Ka Kit was ever dependable in goal. Po Tak Chi played as an emergency centre half with Thomas and they did an excellent job in holding the defence together. The right and left flanks of the defence were completed by Ma Tau, Raymond, Gordon and Ken who had all played extremely well to limit the opponent to having not a single shot on target for the whole match. The midfield was boosted by the return of Ah Chow on the right and the goalscorer last week - Po Tak Pong on the left, the middle of the midfield comprised of Ah Sing and Vincent (where Ah Fai, Eric and Sean also played during the game). Upfront, there were Kenward, Kevin and me.

Due to our wealth of attacking players, we decided not to change out style of play and went out to attack. We completely bossed the game for the first 20 minutes. A great throughball from [who was that?] put me clean through with only the keeper to beat, but I was having 2 minds whether to lob the keeper or to round him. At the end, I chose the worst option - put the ball well over the bar.

Soon afterwards, a corner came in from the right which Vincent had perfect connection with and he sent a low shot towards goal and J Hill was lucky to have someone covering the post and the ball was cleared.

Not to be deterred, a good move on the left saw Po Tak Pong played Ah Sing in, and he turned and sent an inch perfect cross across goal, I somehow managed to head the ball wide from 6 yards but to be fair, I was under pressure from a defender. It wasn't looking to be my day...

On the 18 minutes mark, a defensive header from J Hill was chested down by me, and spotting Ah Chow's run, I sent a through ball to him and he controlled the ball inside the penalty area. He could shoot but hearing my call for the ball, he dragged the ball back to the edge of the 6 yard box and I arrived to send the ball low in the corner of the net Paul-Scholes style. GOALLLLLL!!!!! This is the fruit of our understanding developed between Ah Chow and me through our 15 years football relationship. 1-0 to us in the first half.

In the 2nd half, we expected J Hill to start all out attack on us. It also meant that their defence would leave even more gaps for us to explore. About 10 minutes into the 2nd half, a huge throw in from Gordon (Neville!) from the right, and the defender failed to clear the ball outside the area and I took the ball on the bounce, flicked it up and tried an outrageous overhead volley. 99 times of of 100 would have seen the ball ended up in nowhere, but this time the ball sailed straight towards the corner of the net and in it went. GOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!! Jurgen Klinsmann would have been proud of this shot. :-) I was pleased with the goal, but I haven't realised that it was so special until I saw the cheering of our substitutes and the crowd (there was a crowd larger than the average First Division Hong Kong League match). This goal is not the best I have scored, but it was still special. 2-0

With a 2 goal cushion, we thought we have the match wrapped up. J Hill showed their competitiveness by lumping high crosses into our penalty box again and again. Thomas and Po Tak Chi showed their strength in denying their forwards and Leung Ka Kit was in total command of the penalty area in collecting many difficult balls with challenge from their players. It was inevitable that J Hill scored from one of their corners and the match was up for grabs. 2-1.

Ah Chow had a chance to restore our 2 goal advantage but he took a step too much and his shot from an acute angle was saved by their keeper. Kenward was virtually playing alone upfront after my substitution and we were playing a 4-5-1 with an extra defensive midfielder picking up loose balls. It was desperate and to quote Leung Ka Kit's words after the match, it was a match we played excellently, and we just wanted to win so badly that a draw would be as bad as a defeat. At the final whistle, Ah Chow, Sing and me (all attacking players) were both on the substitutes' bench and it showed how tense it were.

We celebrated at the final whistle and the passion was high. We know that we have played exceptionally well and this is another victory we fully deserved.

So the win saw us sitting proudly at the top of the table with 2 wins out of 2. I am leading the goalscorer chart and hopefully I can maintain my goalscoring record (30 goals in 36 games) which looks pretty impressive:

Year Division Played Goals
2004-2005 Soccer League Premier Division Played 2 Scored 2
2003-2004 Bro Aimar Played 1 Scored 0
2003-2004 Soccer League Division One Played 9 Scored 11
2002-2003 Bro Aimar Group Played 6 Scored 4
2002-2003 Soccer League Premier Division Played 5 Scored 2
2001-2002 Soccer League Played 13 Scored 11

Right people, we are not scared of anyone. Bring them all on!

P.S. Dear teammates, please leave comments or write your own match report from your perspective in the "comments" field. Your comments encourage my further writings.

Fulham 2 Spurs 0

What the hell is going on with Spurs? With the Irish all time goalscorer and one of the hottest strikers in England national team, we are now officially the lowest scoring team in the whole of English and Scottish League. It is even more pathetic as we are renowned for playing entertainment football with style. We did not even have a shot on target for the entire 90 minutes against a mediocre Fulham side.
We certainly are in need of some spark in the side ala Ginola, Klinsmann, even Dominguez in recent years, not to mention the likes of Waddle, Hoddle or Lineker.

Fulham v Spurs Preview and my Memories of what happened 3 years ago

I have been to Craven Cottage 3 years ago when I saw Fulham beating Bolton by 3-0 in one of the last games at Craven Cottage before moving to Loftus Road for the past 2 seasons. I can still remember Malbranque scored a 25 yard screamer that day and Legwinski was booed throughout the match by the home supporters. In fact, that was the first English Premiership match that I evere attended, of couse closely followed by the main dish Spurs v Liverpool (1-0, Poyet).

The match was on the night when I arrived at London alone. If I recall correctly, that was a Monday. After leaving my baggage at where I stayed, I took the subway to Fulham (what's the station?) and walked past a big park along the River Thames to get to the box office. After getting my ticket, I asked a Fulham supporter on the direction of their club shop. That Fulham supporter happened to be a cab driver and he kindly drove me to the club shop (free of charge), a 5 minutes distance from the box office. We chatted on our 5 minute "journey" and I told him I travelled to London to catch the Spurs v Liverpool match. He greeted me good luck and asked me to enjoy the game. This is something which will never happen in Hong Kong.

Right, back to the match. Spurs enjoyed a 4-3 away win at Bolton in the League Cup in the midweek, and will be seeking to turn their goal threats at the Cup (10 goals in 2 games) to the league (6 goals in 10 games).

Edman, Atouba and Gardner all out, Redknapp suspended, Ziegler might get a chance to start on the left hand side and Bunji might perhaps start at the left back where he scored 2 goals in his 2 starts in the cup. In the central midfield, I would hope to see Mendes partnered by Davis with Carrick as backup. Defoe and Kanoute should form the striking partnership.

Prediction: I am biased so I would say 0-1 to Spurs.

Bill Nicholsen O.B.E. RIP

The symbol of Spurs has passed away on Saturday. Although I am too young to witness his playing days or managerial days, his records speak for himself. If not for the achievements of Bill Nicholsen, Spurs would not be the "Glory Team" that it is now known to be. Spurs will always be indebted to this great man.

Spurs 1 Bolton 2 - My Thoughts

Another disjointed performance by Spurs makes one wonder whether we are capable of mounting a serious challenge on the top 6 this season.
- Where is Carrick? We now have 5 central midfielders. How do they rank? In my view, the order should be 1. Mendes 2. Davis 3. Carrick 4. Redknapp and 5. Brown.
- Why should Defoe be dropped? He scored 3 out of our paltry 5 goals this season prior to this game, so why should he be dropped in favour of Keano?
- Are we better now than the era when we had Sherwood, Leonhardsen and Poyet? I seem to think that we played better football and certainly more offensive football with them scoring from midfield for fun.
- Should Arnesen look for established international players rather than players with a bright future on the brink of internation honours? We have too much squad players but not enough star players.

Match Report - Spurs 1 Bolton 2

Tottenham failed to mark the passing of legendary boss Bill Nicholson in fitting style as they lost 2-1 at home to Bolton.
With the game level, both managers had played their attacking options as they went for broke, with Spurs boss bringing on dropped England striker Jermain Defoe and visiting manager Sam Allardyce putting on Henrik Pedersen.
And it was the Dane who scored the winner for the visitors with his first touch to lift them to fourth in the Premiership.
In a sombre atmosphere at White Hart Lane, both sides were desperate for the points to maintain their impressive starts to the season.
For Bolton, they now reaffirm their place as Barclays Premiership high-flyers, while Spurs missed the chance to join them towards the top of the league.
But the day will be remembered for the death of Nicholson, who guided Spurs to the first league and cup double of the modern era in 1961 with an uncompromising style and dedication to total football.
The current manager Jacques Santini had made his own brave decision before the game by dropping Defoe to the bench.
The 22-year-old striker had not scored in the league for his club side since the fourth game of the season, saving his best form for international duty with England.
The onus was on Robbie Keane and Frederic Kanoute to vindicate Santini's decision, and they combined just before half-time to drag Spurs back into the game.
The visitors had gone ahead in the 10th minute after a defensive blunder followed a Gary Speed free-kick. The ball was curled in from the right, was not dealt with by Spurs goalkeeper Paul Robinson and Radhi Jaidi got in front of Anthony Gardner to head powerfully in from close range.
Spurs looked like they missed the cutting edge of Defoe until a surge in the final 10 minutes of the first half.
Spurred by two long shots, Santini's front pairing - seemingly both behind Defoe in the pecking order - combined to devastating effect.
Defender Noureddine Naybet played the ball into Kanoute's feet and, with his back to goal, the Mali international's flick sent Keane through, and he finished emphatically through the legs of Jussi Jaaskelainen.
It was Keane's first league goal of the season, and reward for his tireless running, and Spurs looked the more threatening team after their equaliser.
Neither side looked like seizing the initiative until Santini made the decision to bring on Defoe - and suddenly the tempo of the game increased notably.
Stelios sent a volley flashing wide before Johnnie Jackson had a meek penalty appeal correctly turned down.
Allardyce responded by bringing on Pedersen and the result was swift and effective. Robinson was forced into two saves in quick succession after drives from Jay-Jay Okocha and Stelios.
But the England number one could do nothing as Pedersen swept in another effort.
Spurs, with three in attack, were soon became frustrated in their search for an equaliser.
Firstly, Kanoute's header from 12 yards out was well directed and had Jaaskelainen beaten - but it flicked off the post and went to safety.
Defoe, given the incentive to shine after being dropped, could do nothing to penetrate Bolton's mean defence, although the striker did have a long-range free-kick curl just wide.
In the final moments Okocha kept the ball to himself as Tottenham desperately wanted possession.
Match report courtesy of Soccernet.com

Spurs v Bolton Preview

This is the sort of game that Spurs has to take 3 points if they want to acheive an European place at the end of the season. Both teams have been surpassing their expectations at this stage of the season, and Bolton has already beaten Liverpool and drawn with Man U and Arsenal.

Spurs have suffered a disappointing defeat at Portsmouth on Monday, and Atouba, Edman are out of this game. Spurs' problem this season is their attack, with only 5 goals so far which is the lowest of all the teams in the Premier League. This is unproportional to the talents of Defoe, Keane and Kanoute. Santini has already sorted the defence out, and the next rebuilding step will be the attacks.

Bolton has been playing solid with Campo, Nolan, Pedersen supporting the lively Okocha. They always look dangerous on the break and it will be an entertaining game at the Lane this Saturday.

Prediction: Spurs 1 Bolton 0

Defoe - small man, quick feet, powerful shots 

Pompey 1 Spurs 0 - My Thoughts

Watched the game on TV - 2:45am HK time. Crap commentaries, crap ground.

Some thoughts:
- is it the Robbie Keane who recently broke the all time Irish scoring record?
- is Keano more suited to play in Serie A or B as he seems to fall down quite a lot?
- should Atouba be partly responsible for the goal? he didn't seem to have done any marking for that goal.
- who will play the 2 centre midfield positions when everyone is fit? Mendes is a certain starter for me, and Davis might have the edge over Carrick, Redknapp and Brown.
- will Robinson be able to maintain such standard over the season?
- would Atouba please stop doing tricks inside our own half?
- would Keano, for god sake, do some simple passing early and not take the ball into blind alleys?
- will we see Spurs score 2 in a game ever this season?

Match Report by soccernet - Pompey 1 Spurs 0

Aiyegbeni Yakubu trumped Tottenham with a 62nd-minute header for his fifth goal of the season to take away Jacques Santini's side's tag of meanest away side in the Barclays Premiership as Portsmouth claimed a 1-0 win.
The Nigerian's header was only the second goal against Spurs on their travels this season and it came after Pompey manager Harry Redknapp gambled on fielding three strikers at Fratton Park.
He moved Lomana LuaLua out to the right wing to accommodate substitute Ricardo Fuller as Yakubu's sidekick in the middle.
And the former Newcastle player's cross paved the way for the goal with Yakubu out-jumping the big Spurs defenders.
Tottenham would have climbed to fourth in the table with a win but their functional style did not provide enough scoring chances until the closing minutes when they in tossed Fredi Kanoute and Michael Carrick into the mix.
For Pompey it was their third win of the campaign, having taken just one point from the previous three games, and their greater sense of adventure merited victory.
Even a goal to the good, boss Redknapp brought on a fourth striker in record signing Diomansy Kamara for the last phase of the game.
Spurs were calmly in control early on when the lively Pedro Mendes shot over from 20 yards after setting up Simon Davies to strike a low shot that Shaka Hislop comfortably saved.
Then Davies made a clever run to meet a Mendes chip forward and headed not far over the bar under pressure but it was Portsmouth who carved out the best chances before the break.
England goalkeeper Paul Robinson made a brave save to deny Yakubu after Patrik Berger's pass put the Nigerian through in the 11th minute although the striker should have done better with his shot.
Robinson pushed it far enough away to make a follow-up chance difficult and Eyal Berkovic blazed it over the top.
Yakubu had another opportunity 10 minutes later when Anthony Gardner, filling in for injured Erik Edman, was caught out at left-back and LuaLua slipped the ball through, but under challenge from Noe Pamarot the striker tripped over his own feet.
Berger, who scored twice when Spurs last visited Fratton Park on Boxing Day, and Berkovic were the main creative forces for Pompey.
Spurs continued to have the edge in possession but there was yet another opening on 24 minutes for the home side when Yakubu pulled the ball back from the left and Berger, with little space to work in, fired a cracker from 10 yards.
Television replays showed Robinson got an important touch that turned it over the bar but he was also indebted to some full-stretch defending which kept out LuaLua and Nigel Quashie before the break.
It was not until a minute before the break that Spurs created a real chance when England striker Jermain Defoe took a fresh-air shot at Robbie Keane's pass eight yards out.
The irony for Santini's side was that they came unstuck after upping the tempo at the start of the second half.
Defoe, who had been barely noticed before the interval, tested Hislop with a fierce shot and then drove just over before Gardner's header from a Michael Brown free-kick came back off a post.
But Pompey went for broke by sending on sub Fuller to form a three-pronged attack with Yakubu and LuaLua and the newcomer almost immediately set up a goal for Berger who made space from the Jamaican's clever touch but fired wide.
In the 62nd minute LuaLua, despite his admitted dislike for a wide role, provided the perfect cross for Yakubu to out-jump the big Tottenham defenders and head home his fifth goal of the season.
Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery and Santini carbon-copied Redknapp's ploy by sending on Kanoute to partner Defoe and Robbie Keane in attack for the last eight minutes.
He also brought on Carrick for his Spurs debut - to the inevitable sound of jeers after he turned down Pompey to sign for Spurs.
But the Pompey boss had another potential trump to play, sending on Diomansy Kamara for Yakubu and the Senegalese striker almost put his name on the scoresheet with a shot on the turn that slipped just wide.

Linking to the World Cup Football News blog

Added a new link to World Cup Football News blog. The site is full of football news and has a nice and neat layout. Check that out.

Match Preview - Portsmouth v Spurs

A difficult game to predict. The Pompeys are strong at home and had one of the best home records last season, while Spurs were having a nightmare away record last season. Spurs however is unbeaten in 3 away games this season, and have beaten Newcastle and Everton on the way.

Redknapp is suspended for this game and Sean Davis is injured. Carrick may take the midfield place with Mendes, with Davies and Atouba at either flanks. If Defoe can reproduce his early season form, Spurs can hope for another 1-0 victory.

It is worth making a bet of Under 2.5 goals as Spurs is resolute at the back this season and they are not scoring too many goals either.

Prediction: 0-0 or 0-1 to Spurs

2003-4 LSCOBA First Division Champions

Winning Eleven - the team without Stephen Po, Alwin Chow, Plato Chan, Matthew Hung

Posing with the Cup - Champions of First Division 2003-4 

LSCOBA Match Report - Winning Eleven 1 KLC 0

First match of the season. Winning Eleven is back to where they belong - the Premier Division. After going 10 consecutive matches without a win (or a draw), this 1-0 win is a good sign for the team which has been reinforced by the "signings" of Ken and Fai.

Fielding our new signings right from the start, we dominated the first 15 mins and created a number of half chances in the first half. It was inevitable that our stamina began to drop in the last 15 minutes of the first half, allowing KLC to get back into the game.

At the start of the 2nd half, 4 of our starting forwards found themselves sitting on the bench including Sing, Kevin, Po and me. Whilst on the sidelines, I discussed with my teammates and we agreed that we should gamble for 3 points rather than settle for 1 point. After the 15 minutes mark, we decided to send one Po who play a free role attacking their full backs. Sing hold the midfield together. Kevin (later substituted by Kenward) and I played upfront.

The change of formation to a flexible 4-3-3 paid dividends soon. A cross from Raymond eluded me, and the ball fell at the feet of Po. Po steered the ball goalwards at the 2nd attempt and although the keeper did get a touch of the ball, the ball still went in. It turned out to be the winnig goal of the match.

After the goal, KLC played more offensively but it also left a large gap at their back. Our 3 forwards tactic continued to create chances after chances, and I have wasted 3 chances to extend our lead. 2 shots from 18 yards were saved low by the keeper while an easy shot from 10 yards were ballooned over the bar. My excuse? Well, I didn't score in the first match of last season, but I ended up with 11 goals from 7 games, so there!

All in all, we have done our business and it was a game we deserved to win, and we did win.

Back to the Cell

Ok, coffee finished. Blog updated. Time to take a tram back to the cell.

Joke of the Day

In a pub, two guys are sitting when in walks a living dream, drop dead gorgeous girl.
Fella one says to his mate, God, she's nice. I'd love to go out with her.
His mate says, well go for it then, to which the other feller says, i can't, you know I'm crap with girls. I can't think of anything intellegent to say to them.
His mate suggest he has a stiff drink for Dutch courage, then waits for her to go to the loo. He then has to follow her out, and as she exits the khazi, gently bumps into her. This prompts him to offer a sincere apology, after which he says 'nice day, isn't it?' to which she would hopefully reply, Yes. Then - the piece de resistance - he says 'but I think your eyes are even nicer', and off he goes...
Bloke one thinks about it and says OK, I'll go for it.
True to form, five minutes later, the Goddess walks to the loo. He follows her, and as she comes out, bumps into her.
"Sorry" he says "That's ok" she replies sweetly
"Isn't it a nice day?" he offers "Yes, it is" she replies with apparent honesty
"But not nearly as nice as your eyes...."
She goes red, her eyes moisten, and she says "That's wonderful...nobody says things like that nowadays - you must be a kind, sincere genuine guy...the kind of guy I've always been looking for..."
Panic. His mouth goes dry, his heart begins to race, and in a fit of anxiety he replies ...
"So, er - did you have a good zhit?"

Still no news....

Still no news from Simon and Simon... I am starting to worry that the absence of their head of dept from my interview will prove costly. He might have attended other interviewees and have seen enough and thought that there would be no need to call me back again.

By Hand

Friday afternoon. An iced vanilla latte in front of me. I am updating this blog at Pacific Coffee in Quarry Bay. What a great job for me, eh?

I was sent to hand deliver the tender by my boss (also known as "the S-hole"), and I would be foolish if I don't enjoy a coffee before going back to the office (aka "the cell"). After all, I have to fork out the travelling expenses myself without being reimbursed.

Bronze Bauhinia Medal

It is now better and better for my Dad. It was the JP honour 7 years ago, and it is the Bronze Bauhinia Medal now. What's next?



I got a taste of wearing the medal

Fat Tung and my dad 

Still struggling

BR officially is a no-hoper for me now.

Got an interview with Simon and Simon this evening. It was marginally better than the BR one, but I think I should have done better nevertheless. It was quite a decent firm, and the fittings definitely look the part to me. Hope I can have better fortunes this time round.

The $1 million question: How on earth did this lady get past the preliminary rounds to get on the show? 

Bad times...

1. So I have 8 weeks to prove myself....but what am I supposed to prove if I am not given any work? It is bad bad times ahead.
And why are you giving me a secretary now when you should have done this 2 years ago!

2. And I can forget about BR now.
"I am heavily involved in mortgagees action, acting for major banks and financial institutions."
"I think those are routine work, right?"
......
"I have also done some employment matters and discrimination matters to tackle complaints filed by claimants with the EOC and Labour Tribunal"
"I imagine those are simple cases."
......



3. So I realise now that there is no need to send my CV to every agents appeared in the HK Lawyer. Just send to 2 of them and they will sort it out. If you are in need of them, I recommend that you see Mary Schaus of Legal Futures and Lindsey of Hughes Castell. They mean business.

How to have a successful interviewing?

I was always stuck when I was asked "What questions do you have?" Now here are some sample questions which might be useful in tackling this question:
Appropriate questions to ask during an interview may include:

--Personalized

1. What kinds of cases are you currently working on? or What is the most interesting case you have worked on?
2. Why did you choose to work for this employer?
3. What is a typical day like for you?
4. What do you like most about your job?
5. How long were you at the firm before you had significant client contact?
6. Did you start off in your current practice area? If not Why did you switch?

--Sincere interest in the position and the employer
7. Do you have a formal mentor program?
8. How will my work be evaluated?
9. Who will assign my work?
10. Will I receive feedback?
11. What kinds of cases will I work on?
12. How does someone become a star at this firm? -- What makes them stand out?
13. How has the firm's practice changed over the years?
14. Where do you see the firm's practice heading over the next several years?
15. How would you describe the ideal candidate? (You can use this description in closing the interview. For example, You described your ideal candidate as a team player who has strong communication skills. That describes me perfectly. My communication skills have been demonstrated by the fact that I excelled in my research and writing class and in the inter-school Moot Court Competition. My teamwork capabilities are apparent through my work at the Salvation Army where I assembled and led a team of over 50 volunteers through the largest fund-raising campaign in the charity's history. I'm also self-motivated, detail-oriented and have been described by former employers as a tremendous problem-solver. I believe I am very well-suited for this position and would love a chance to prove myself. Thanks for taking the time to talk to me today.)

--Show off research
16. I recently read about the firm's opening of a satellite office in Louisville. Has that helped the firm to attract corporate clients headquartered in Kentucky?



Below are some websites which give me some hints, and I recommend you to have a look if you need some tips as well:

Successful Interviewing
Successful Interviews
Sample interview questions with answers

The Worst Best Man

Congratulations Gary and Agnes for ending their marathon dating and becoming husband and wife this week. I am privileged enough to be chosen as the best man by Gary, but unfortunately their wedding banquet this Saturday has coincided with my dad's banquet in celebration of his collection of the bronze bauhinia award. So I will only be able to hand the wedding for Gary at the church to discharge my duty as best man. I must be the worst best man around.

Agents

Sent some emails to the agents last Thurs, and my lunch slots this week have been filled up within 2 hours.

Met 2 agents today and what they said were too rosy to be true. I would be let down massively if I can't land any of the vacancies they mentioned.

The most surprising phone call came from RB, who gives me an interview this Wed. This is the best vacancy around, but I am really nervous. After all, I haven't attended such interview since I got the trainee job 6 years ago.

Everton 0 Spurs 1 - My Thoughts

A nice away win for Spurs. We would have folded if it was last season's team, but this season the team shows tremendous energy to defend their cause. We are now 5th in the table. 

Everton 0 Spurs 1 - Match Report

Everton were brought down to earth by a shock goal from French defender Noe Pamarot and a Tottenham side who responded to a first period when they had been bullied out of the match with a performance of steel of their own to triumph 1-0.
Everton will claim it went too far. One shocking Jamie Redknapp tackle ended Tim Cahill's involvement in the game and also saw a melee between players as they left the pitch at half-time.
It continued after the break in a spiteful game that stretched referee Graham Poll's abilities to the full.
Everton hit the woodwork twice, had two penalty appeals turned down, but in the end found themselves with an uphill battle against a determined a defiant Spurs who maintained their unbeaten away league record.
Boss David Moyes had wondered pre-match when their bubble would burst, but he surely was not expecting it to come from a Spurs side who had barely got out of their half in the first period.
Cahill's departure - after brushing aside Redknapp's apology and graphically demonstrating to all what had been done to him - set the tone for an unpleasant second period, and Everton's eventual demise.
Moyes described claims of a training-ground bust-up between Marcus Bent and Thomas Gravesen as "absolute rubbish" before naming the pair in a side chasing four successive league wins for the first time in two years.
And Bent was involved in the first major incident of the match when he was denied a penalty on five minutes. The big striker forced his way in from the left, got to the line and turned back into the box, only to be felled by Erik Edman's outstretched foot.
Referee Poll, who surely should have booked Bent if he thought he was diving, decided to do nothing.
Spurs were subjected to a hounding at every turn and were forced into conceding possession.
It almost cost them when a sloppy throw was conceded on the right, and when Gravesen hurled the ball into the box, Cahill saw a header beat Paul Robinson and clatter against the left-hand post.
Another ball in from the right, this time a Cahill cross, was met by Leon Osman at point-blank range, but Robinson saved superbly.
Everton had their tails up and the terrier-like harassment that is so much part of Everton's play kept Spurs pinned down, Kevin Kilbane, in particular, hounding Pamarot into a succession of errors.
Pamarot had a nightmare against the big Irishman, who got in behind the full-back to chest down a long ball from Alan Stubbs before firing a cross-shot inches wide of the far post.
A minute later another ball in from the left saw Kilbane look to get a yard in front of Pamarot on the far post only to be felled by the former Nice player.
Neither player made any contact with the ball but again referee Poll turned down penalty appeals.
Spurs did not enjoying being hounded. Redknapp suffered against Gravesen and Pedro Mendes against Lee Carsley, the Spurs pair constantly caught in possession.
And when another Gravesen long throw was flicked on by Kilbane, it bounced off Ledley King and dropped inches wide of a post with Robinson stranded.
Spurs were just happy to get off unscathed at the break, but there was still time for a melee as the players came off, with Timothee Atouba and David Weir momentarily involved before peace was restored.
But eight minutes into the second period, with Everton again having most of the play, Spurs took a shock lead.
Pamarot's bad day improved considerably when he appeared in Everton's box following a Robbie Keane corner that was cleared and hooked back in by Simon Davies. Pamarot was left unmarked beyond the far post to head back through a crowded area, beating Martyn's left hand.
Everton hit back almost immediately when Osman placed a low shot from just outside the box that evaded Robinson but hit the foot of a post and bounced across goal for Kilbane, who shot over from the rebound.
Duncan Ferguson came on for Carsley, but things turned nasty two minutes later when Redknapp was booked for a bad foul on Cahill.
The Australian needed lengthy treatment and as he was eventually taken off, Redknapp tried to shake his hand, but an angry Cahill graphically demonstrated the assault he had just suffered, before limping away to be replaced by Steve Watson.
Defoe was next in the book for a late lunge at Weir right in front of the dug-outs, the angry defender being ushered away by team-mates.
Everton subjected Spurs to a long-ball bombardment, but tall defenders Noureddine Naybet, King and Gardner, coped well.
Spurs' objective was made clearer when they took off striker Defoe and put on midfielder Reto Ziegler, leaving just Keane up front.
By now everything Everton did was hurried and continually cost them possession. Much of their forward play by now was individual running into the heart of a packed defence.

Haircut

Got a new haircut at Hairdo, Causeway Bay. The interesting thing is that 70% of the stylists are Japanese, and mine is no exception. In fact, SHE doesn't speak Cantonese and we needed someone to do the translation for us. The head and shoulder massage after the shampoo was also very nice.

So bye bye Esprit Salon for now, your Esprit ladies (even with their skirts) couldn't beat the Japanese girl. And it is cheaper as well.

If anyone is interested, please let me know. I will give you a 10% discount card.

Everton v Spurs Preview

No Kanoute for this game, so our front two are bound to be Defoe and Keane. Keane has yet to find form this season, and his tendency to hold on the ball too long might slow down our attacking moves. In my recollection, Spurs enjoys a good record against Everton, and I hope this will be the case this season again, but Everton is having an unbelievable start to the season.

How David Moyes can get the results using the starting 11 who would struggle to play in our first team (except Gravesen) is beyond me. Spurs didn't score in the last 3 league games, so a draw is always a likely option.

Prediction: 1-1 draw or 1-2 to Spurs

A nice Spurs Blog

Came across this Blog at GGnet, a popular forum for Spurs fans. Make sure you check this blog out as it is 100% Spurs related. (unlike me who put everything here without any sorting)

Keep up your good work, James (not me)!

Happy Birthday Simon

Celebrated Simon's birthday at OneOneNam and Karin's place.
Played card games and Connie proved that she is indeed a mathematics genuis.... 6x4 =24....
All the photos HERE thanks to Karin


The couple and me

At Karin's place 

The handsome trio 

simon, james, jo, connie, rudy and karin 

Simon 

Rudy the chef at OneOneNam

Coordination

Seems that I just can't coordinate what I think with what I speak these days:
e.g. 大件夾抵食 ----> 大食夾抵件
擺隻碟落架車先 ----> 擺架車落隻碟先

My bets

Last week was a particularly frustrating week for me in the betting perspective. I can't seem to get anything right but at least the newly discovered tactics of laying of 5 bookings or more in the Premier League and the laying of the first goal odds at 0-20 minutes are still working in my favour so far.

Tonight's Champions League Preview: Dynamo Kiev to win, Monaco to win, Real Madrid to win.

Spurs 0 Man U 1: My Thoughts

It is not a penalty, at least not in my eyes.

Yes, there were tussles in the area, but O'Shea pulled as much as Edman did. So the benefit of doubt should always go to the defender in this scenario. Poor decision, and it triggered Spurs first defeat of the season.

I love the tactical flexibility displayed by Santini. A brave move saw Defoe playing upfront, Kanoute and Keano on the flanks and Mabizela joining Redknapp and Mendes in a defensive midfield trio. It might work has Kanoute not been injured in the first 20 minutes, but anyway it is a brave and adventurous tactical move by Santini, and I hope to see more of that.

Match Report: Spurs 0 Man U 1

Manchester United followed up their Monday night win over Liverpool with a passionate 1-0 victory at White Hart Lane as Sir Alex Ferguson's team finally claimed their first away win of the season - and sent Spurs to their first defeat under Jacques Santini.

Ruud van Nistelrooy beats Paul Robinson (JamieMcDonald/GettyImages)

Ruud van Nistelrooy was the matchwinner in United's 700th top-flight game under Ferguson, firing home a penalty four minutes before halftime after Erik Edman tugged back John O'Shea, the Dutchman's first league goal of the season.

That made it six points from two games since Rio Ferdinand returned from his eight-month ban for failing to attend a drugs test, and this was United signalling to Arsenal and Chelsea that it will be a three-way fight for the title this season.

United came out of the traps flying and Spurs were fortunate not to concede a penalty after only three minutes as they were spared by the honesty of Gabriel Heinze.

The Argentine defender found space on the left, just inside the penalty area, when Mbulelo Mabizela slid in with a reckless tackle.

Heinze went down but jumped up immediately to try and play in the cross, and had he remained on the floor referee Pete Walton would surely have awarded a spot kick.

Spurs hit back after seven minutes when they won a free kick on the right, level with the 18-yard box following a handball by Heinze. Keane curled in the cross and Noureddine Naybet headed wide at the near post.

It was fast and furious and two minutes later a low Ryan Giggs free kick into the Spurs box was met with a stooping header from Alan Smith, but it lacked the power to trouble goalkeeper Paul Robinson and he made a simple save.

It was van Nistelrooy who caused the next problem after 26 minutes. The Dutchman's low drive from the right deflected off Ledley King and Robinson had to pounce on the ball at his near post. A minute later a Giggs curling effort was not too far over the Spurs bar.

Spurs made a change with Fredi Kanoute being replaced by Davies after 29 minutes. Perhaps it was Santini's way of trying to stem the tide, although the Frenchman left the field holding his hamstring.

Spurs were reduced to the odd long-range effort but a 25-yard half-volley from Mendes almost caught out Carroll after 38 minutes as he was forced to push the ball around his right post for a corner.

Spurs were rocked after 41 minutes when Edman tugged back O'Shea and this time the referee's assistant signalled for a penalty. Van Nistelrooy fired the ball into the left corner to give United a deserved lead.

United picked up where they left off after the break - dominating possession - and Smith might have done better when creating a chance for himself after 47 minutes.

The England striker cleverly chipped the ball over Naybet on the edge of the box but then snatched at the ball and screwed it wide with only Robinson to beat.

As if not to be outdone, Defoe created a chance of his own three minutes later by nicking the ball away from Roy Keane, but was unfortunate to be just off balance as he took his shot and he too screwed the ball wide.

Spurs won a free kick on the right after 57 minutes when Heinze climbed all over Jamie Redknapp but such was United's desire for the win, they had three defenders trying to head the cross clear as only King challenged.

The first booking of the game arrived after 59 minutes and it went to Mendes for a trip on Ronaldo.

Two minutes later United had the ball in the net again as Ronaldo crossed low from the left and van Nistelrooy guided the ball home, but Spurs were saved by an offside flag.

That gave United fresh impetus and after 64 minutes Ronaldo skipped easily past Edman and drilled in a low shot which Robinson saved well at his near post.

United screamed for another penalty after 67 minutes but the referee was spot on to ignore the pleas as Noe Pamarot played the ball and not the man.

It almost got worse for Spurs following a United corner after 72 minutes, but Keane bravely put his body in the way to block a point blank shot from Silvestre.

Spurs rode their luck one more time after 88 minutes when Ronaldo crossed from the left and substitute David Bellion saw his diving header hit Robinson's body - a save the England goalkeeper knew little about.

Spurs v Man U Preview

7 games into the new season, 3 wins 4 draws, 2 conceded. Statistics tell us that Spurs have lost the last 6 games to Man U, home or away.

I am always optimistic about our home game against Man U, especially the form of Man U is by no way excellent of late. If our defence can hold their own against Van the Horse, I am confident of at least a draw, but my heart says this will be a good home win for Spurs. Defoe is not afraid of playing the top teams, so he will be the nucleus of all the Spurs move, and hopefully Davies will strengthen our right side and provide some quality crosses for Freddie to nod some in.

My prediction: Spurs 2 Man U 1

Casual Friday

Christy: is rudy b-day coming?
Rudy: still a long way to go, Karin's will come b4 mine

Karin: by just 1 day lar..... >_<

Christy: i wrongly remember it's in early oct

Connie: oh, christy, you broke rudy's heart la...

Christy: he won't. only if you forget about his b-day, he will

Me: Christy the Heart Breaker

Connie: oh, so it's Rudy The Broken Heart, i never remember his b-day

Rudy: that trivial matter will not affect my love and affection on your gals .. no worries

Karin: well well, whether heart broken or not depends on "weight" lar....

Connie: enough entertainment, do we need to book a table in heaven on earth? btw, is the venue fixed yet?

.....

Trip to London off?

On a sour note, my scheduled trip to London for the Chalton and Arse game is likely to be called off. :-(

FM2005

The much awaited FM2005 beta demo is out. Would it be the best management game as expected?

Oldham v Spurs - My Thoughts

So a pleasantly surprise result for Spurs in the League Cup, and first starts of the season for Keller, OJ, Bunji and Gardner means the team boosted squad depth which was lacking last season. First goals of the season for Keano, Kanoute and Bunji give Santini a tough choice as to who should partner Defoe upfront. On current form, I prefer Kanoute to Keano.

Next up is Bolton away in the League Cup. If we can beat them, I can see the boys going all the way!

Match Report: Oldham 0 Spurs 6

The quality of Tottenham's forward line proved too hot for Oldham to handle as Jacques Santini's side eased their way into the third round of the Carling Cup with a 6-0 cruise at Boundary Park.

Keane: On song for Spurs (MatthewLewis/GettyImages)

Teams such as Oldham can expect to suffer against strikers of the calibre of Freddie Kanoute, Robbie Keane and Jermain Defoe - with the trio scoring the opening three goals.

Santini, a winner of the French League Cup during his time at Lyon, had to be patient as the Latics, currently 17th in League One, displayed little by way of nerves.

But class eventually won through, in particular during a one-sided second-half which saw Spurs rattle in five goals.

Former Arsenal defender and current Oldham manager Brian Talbot will have been disappointed as Spurs capitalised on their first corner of the tie to take the lead just eight minutes from the break.

It was simply done as Keane curled in the cross for Kanoute to head down and beyond Craig Mawson for his first goal since a hat-trick in an FA Cup third-round tie against Crystal Palace in January.

Spurs were inches away from a second on the stroke of half-time, with Keane steering a knockdown from Kanoute to a free-kick from captain Jamie Redknapp narrowly over the bar.

That would have been rough justice on Oldham as there was respect, but not awe, from Talbot's side for their visitors whose only other chances were half ones for Keane and Johnnie Jackson.

Oldham, who had scored 13 league goals in four home games prior to this match, never truly tested Kasey Keller, back in goal for the first time since the final game of last season due to Paul Robinson's £1.5million summer arrival from Leeds.

After a moment's indecision in the opening minute which almost let in Jamaican Jermaine Johnson, Keller was more alert in the 20th minute when he needed to be quick off his line to deny New Zealander Chris Killen.

Oldham's best chance of the half came when Spurs were still celebrating their opener as a low left-wing cross from 40-year-old David Eyres was behind Anthony Gardner, and though Killen was lurking, he failed to trouble Keller.

After the break Spurs found another gear, with Michael Brown and Kanoute going close, sandwiching a crisp angled drive from Killen which flashed past the right-hand post, but that proved to be the home side's lot.

In the 65th minute, a mix-up between former Spurs trialist Mark Arber and Mawson gave Keane the opportunity he needed to score his first goal of the season, firing home from an acute angle into the roof of the net.

It was his final contribution as he was replaced by Defoe in the 67th minute, the England international starting on the bench as one of seven changes to the team which drew in the Barclays Premiership at Chelsea on Sunday.

Within four minutes Defoe had scored his fourth of the season, finishing an incisive move involving another substitute in Pedro Mendes and Brown.

After Defoe had ruffled the sidenetting with another thunderous drive five minutes from time, Spurs added a few exclamation points to the scoreline in the closing moments.

Serbia and Montenegro defender Goran Bunjevcevic finished from 12 yards for Tottenham's fourth, before Gardner scored a beauty from 25 yards for his first goal for two years.

Kanoute completed the rout, arrowing a 15-yarder beyond Mawson with the final kick of the game.

Oldham v Spurs Preview

An amazing losing run of 3 consecutive nights have put a halt to my winning trail, so I have to count on my Spurs team to put that losing run to an end and all they have to do tonite is to beat Oldham by 1-0 or 2-0.

Spurs have been defending as well as I have seen in recent years but their attacking power have not been convincing as well. Therefore a low scoring game with Spurs scoring the odd goal or two would be a perfect match for the statistics. Some fringe players will be played and tested, and I expect Simon Davies will score one of the goals and the other possibly coming from Keane.

Prediction: Oldham 0-1 or 0-2 Spurs

The Amazing Race - the only TV show that makes me yell

Well done Chip and Kim for finishing the Amazing Race in the first place. I have rooted for you Chip since the 2nd Episode. I could not go to sleep if Colin and Christie have got that 1 million. You raced fairly, used the Yield wisely and played the tactics smartly. You are a deserved winner!

Colin and Christie were the fittest team and the most competitive one. Their ego have let them down at the final 2 legs though. Bowling moms were the surprise of the whole race.

OK, Amazing Race 6 will come in Oct. Can't wait!

Note: I would recommend whoever have installed Cable TV to watch at least 1 episode of the Amazing Race, you gonna love it. It is on AXN channel (22) every Wednesday, 9pm.

Everything you wanted to know about blogging but were afraid to ask

Spent some time to promote this Blog to my friends, and I hope everyone would have their own blog before long. For beginners like me, there is an excellent article to get you going. Read it here.

Apparently it is me

Contributed by Ellen -- apparently it is me according to her.

Joey Yung?

警花「容祖兒」畀大Sir撩
新 聞 — 本 港 新 聞
全 港 首 間 警 察 服 務 中 心 昨 日 開 張 大 吉 ， 除 了 一 眾 警 隊 「 大 Sir 」 到 場 剪 綵 道 賀 外 ， 在 服 務 中 心 的 櫃 後 ， 竟 出 現 了 一 個 身 穿 整 齊 軍 裝 的 容 祖 兒 ， 細 看 之 下 ， 才 發 現 她 名 牌 上 寫 另 一 個 名 字 。
被 取 笑 即 面 紅 問 其 芳 名 ， 坐 在 她 身 旁 的 阿 Sir 竟 笑 道 ： 「 咪 叫 容 祖 兒 囉 ！ 」 弄 得 她 登 時 臉 紅 尷 尬 。 其 實 這 位 Madam 名 叫 劉 念 素 ， 是 一 位 名 副 其 實 的 「 新 紮 師 妹 」 ， 入 行 一 年 半 ， 之 前 在 中 區 駐 守 。 她 不 但 精 通 普 通 話 ， 還 一 直 有 進 修 英 文 ， 所 以 絕 對 勝 任 能 為 市 民 及 旅 客 提 供 滿 意 服 務 。

Joey Yung of the Hong Kong Police Force, courtesy of Oriental Daily

My bets round up

+1020.42 at Betfair over the weekend.
Nice job Spurs, Palermo, Watford, Espanyol...etc.

+1000 at hkjc for a nice 3x4 accumulator of over / under 2.5 goals and correct score 2x3

Tonite: Lay Man U v Liverpool at 2.24. Come on Pool!

Photo of the Day

Jamie Redknapp, Captain of the mighty Spurs, and me. This was taken before the match Spurs v Liverpool in 2002 - Jamie had just signed for Spurs on a free transfer.

One Country, Two Currencies

When I was returning from the PTR hearing in the afternoon, I had only got a $10 note and a $500 note in my wallet, with few RMB$5 as well. The taxi fare was $15. I gave the $500 note to the taxi driver who rejected it by saying, "Hey, I didn't get any change for you!". I then offered him a $10 note and 2 RMB$5 notes to settle the fare, and he immediately accepted. Is it a matter of time before RMB becomes a legal currency in Hong Kong?

Chelsea v Spurs - My Thoughts

Two successive 0-0 draws for Spurs, but the entertainment value of both matches are high. As I have predicted, the game was a low scoring affair, and it can't get as low as a 0-0 draw. The back 4 (Edman, Paramot, Naybet and King) are majestic compared to last season's line up (Taricco, Carr, Doherty and Gardner). King was particularly impressive and the statistics told us that he hasn't committed a foul since England v Iceland back in June until last night. And he is a defender!

Mendes is getting better and better with each game since his move from Porto, and it would be difficult to leave him out of the side when Carrick and Davis returned from their injuries. Davies returned for his first start and delivered a nice cross only for Keano to head the ball straight at Cech, and Atouba was doing okay. His stepovers were funny to look at for a huge man. Defoe and Keano didn't see much of the ball as we were under siege for most of the game, but Keano's touches let him down a number of times. Keano definitely needs to get sharper, or else his place will be in jeopardy.

Redknapp played an unspectacular but effective game, and I think he didn't deserve those harsh critics directed against him. I have met Redknapp when he first signed for Spurs, and he was a genuinely nice bloke. He stopped his car at the main entrance, rolled down his car window and signed autographs and posed for photographs for the fans. A first rate man and a decent footballer as well. He is our team captain and I hope the fans will set aside their opinions and give Redknapp a clean slate before judging him.

James' Man of the Match: Ledley King

Chelsea 0-0 Tottenham - Match Report

Chelsea failed to close the gap on leaders Arsenal as Tottenham continued their fine start to the season. Spurs gave a prodigious defensive display, with Nourredine Naybet and Ledley King outstanding at the back.

When Chelsea did breach the Spurs defence they were thwarted by Paul Robinson, who twice rushed out to deny Didier Drogba and Eidur Gudjohnsen.

But Chelsea keeper Petr Cech made the save of the game, somehow tipping over the bar a Robbie Keane header.

Having failed to score in their last two league games, Chelsea remain two points behind Arsenal at the top of the table.

Spurs continue to go from strength-to-strength under new manager Jacques Santini - and this was a performance of the highest order.

Jose Mourinho threw on Damien Duff and Mateja Kezman to try and snatch the elusive goal but by withdrawing Joe Cole, the Chelsea coach deprived his team of their most creative player.

Chelsea forced three corners in the opening two minutes, Gudjohnsen and Ricardo Carvalho going close with a couple of headers.

Robinson had misjudged the flight of Frank Lampard's corner for the Gudjohnsen chance but he was quickly to make amends.

Gudjohnsen released Drogba with a perceptive pass that cut out the Spurs defence only for Robinson to rush out to beat the Ivory Coast international to the ball.

Working behind Droga and Gudjohnsen, Cole enjoyed a productive game for Chelsea and time and again he threatened to unlock the Spurs defence.

The Chelsea midfielder nearly freed Gudjohnsen twice and Cole himself then weaved his way into the Spurs box with a penetrating run.

Spurs did manage to halt Cole run's but the ball ran to Tiago, who scuffed his shot.

Just before the interval, Robinson was quick off his line again to deny Drogba following an intricate Chelsea move and a fine Lampard pass.

Spurs were more timid as an attacking force in the opening half, their best outlet some forceful running from Thimothee Atouba.

Just after the interval Spurs had their first clear sight of goal when Keane was denied by Cech's reaction save after Carvalho misjudged a Simon Davies cross.

Chelsea's Czech goalkeeper also had to scamper across his line quickly to parry a Jamie Redknapp shot following a Spurs corner.

As Chelsea redoubled their attacking efforts, Robinson had to come to side's rescue again, pushing away a Lampard free-kick that the Spurs goalkeeper saw very late as it came to him through a crowded penalty area.

In a frantic finale, Gudjohnsen hit the post, although if the ball had gone in the goal would not have stood as Drogba was in an offside position.

And King made one final last-ditch clearance as Drogba bore down on goal to ensure Spurs claimed a thoroughly deserved point.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chelsea: Cech, Paulo Ferreira, Ricardo Carvalho, Terry, Bridge (Smertin 85), Tiago (Kezman 66), Lampard, Makelele, Cole (Duff 66), Drogba, Gudjohnsen.
Subs Not Used: Pidgeley, Gallas.

Booked: Smertin.

Tottenham: Robinson, Naybet, King, Edman, Pamarot, Atouba (Brown 74), Redknapp, Pedro Mendes, Davies, Defoe (Kanoute 86), Keane.
Subs Not Used: Keller, Mabizela, Gardner.

Booked: King, Redknapp.

Att: 42,246

Photo of the Day

Photo of the day: Ginger Pele and me.

Bets of the night

Come on Spurs, Watford, Inverness and Celtic.
And Everton and Middlesboro for a draw please.

My Girl

May I introduce Ellen, my girlfriend and the chief of White Terror Terrorist Attack(!), who will feature prominently in this Blog.

Chelsea v Spurs Preview

Spurs' record against Chelsea has been nothing else but appalling. Santini and his new look team, however, give supporters a solid start to this season. 2 wins, 3 draws and yet undefeated in the new season. Defoe is our main and only threat so far, but with Simon Davies and Robbie Keana back from injury, Spurs will be looking for a better attacking option.

The main worry I have is Naybet v Drogba. Huckerby has proved that Naybet would struggle against pace, and Drogba will seize on this deficiency of Naybet for some goalscoring threat. Anyway, I estimate this game will be a low scoring affair.

Prediction: Chelski 1-1 Spurs

Nightmares

I had a series of mares last night, and that was a sign that I have fallen sick.

Much like Silent Hill 4: the Room (the PS2 game), my room was invaded by "ghosts". I dreamt that some strange words have been written on my wardrobe, and my law dictionary which was placed on the top drawer of my wardrobe suddenly fell down on me as I was lying on my bed. I also heard strange noises....

Nice dream!

The Debut of The Glory Glory Tottenham Hotsblog

A rainy day, a weak body and a soar throat = creation of this Glory Glory Tottenham Hotsblog!

How long will this blog continue to run? What content should this blog contain? How frequently will this blog be updated? I don't know.

Let's see.

Thi s is me